By: Diane Benjamin

Below is an email that was sent and answered in March by William Bessler to McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael on behalf of the Finance Committee. The chair of that committee, Val Laymon, at least one other committee member, and administration also received the response from Kathy Michael. Bessler’s questions are listed and followed by Michael’s response.

Note: I had to reformat the email or you wouldn’t have been able to read the tiny print. Michael did not receive a response from Admin to her reply, unless you count media.

Hi Kathy, 
I have some questions related to item 4.A.1)b) (Request approval of an Emergency Appropriation Ordinance Amending the McLean County Fiscal Year 2025 Combined Annual Appropriation and Budget Ordinance for the County Clerk). Those questions are listed below. Thank you!

 10010506 515001 (Part-Time Employees Sal) (3)Permanent Part-Time
o Why were there $66,142 in expenses when there was nothing in the original budget?  Administration creates the salary line budgets. While there was a $22,000 budget in 2023 and $45,000 budget in 2024, for some reason, in 2025 there was no money allocated to this line.

o How many part-time positions did this cover and what were their duties?
Three permanent part-time employees worked in Elections. Bob LaPorte does roughly 95% of the data entry for voter registration (historically about 1000 transactions in busy months). This includes Illinois Voter Registration System transfers and reinstatements, POVA’s, AVR’s, Social Security validation, cancellations and documentation thereof for deceased voters, processes
returned Voter ID cards (R26’s). He enters Vote-By-Mail requests into the VR system, researches and corrects voter information, returns voter phone calls. Bob proofs ballots, inspects polling places and deals with contractors doing work for ADA grants. He trains temporary part-time employees to assist him. He attends webinars on Election mail issues and liaises with USPS. He picks up mail from the Elections PO Box during the election cycles and brings it directly to the office for quicker processing and many other things. Bob comes in when needed and stays away or leaves when not needed.

Rob Watson creates and updates election judge training videos and coordinates online judge testing and certification. He leads a team who tracks and resolves thornier voter registration issues, using online tables he created. Rob updates the Elections pages of the website and works on making pages and documents accessible for ADA compliance, in cooperation with County IT. He created a table to make it easy for the public to find out who their Elected & Appointed Officials are, and to allow more efficient updating of these lists. He builds webpages and forms and advises on web issues. He proofs Election Judge reference binders and makes corrections. He posted election results to the website. Rob works on other tech projects, as needed.

Pat Furnace supervised Early Voting Election Judges. She led the Vote-By-Mail processing team. She assisted with Election Judge training sessions and grant-writing. Pat proofed ballots and the EJ reference binder. She placed legal ads in the newspapers and assisted with any other type of work that came up.

 10010507 526001 (Overtime Pay)
o Why was an additional $40,000 expensed for this line-item? 
This overtime was necessary for the new tax administrator to become completely familiar with the many duties relating to tax extension. This employee also assists with the supervision of Vitals staff, handles daily balancing, processes tax redemptions and assists with County Board documents.

 10010508 503001 (Full-Time Employees Sal)
o Why was an additional $32,748 expensed for this line-item?  

It comes down to [pay adjustments by the County (?), COLA’s, Merit Increases but Admin says they figure this in] reclassifications and hiring people in at higher salaries because they were better. For example, just looking at the difference
between 2024 and 2025 salaries for 13 people: pay increased by $8.8489/hr (total). $8.8489 x 1950 hours in a FT year results in an increased cost of $17,255.40. It’s a long process to follow all the position management over 2024-2025 to figure out how it comes out to 32,748 exactly. We have not added any new positions. We eliminated one position (MZ in Elections). We haven’t seen
the savings from that yet, but it will be felt in the overtime line (less 12,909 – 23,887 basically 13,000 per election, average 18,400 over 2 years) and in the full-time employee line (less 36,728 and plus less than 20,000). Bess is making $7880/yr more than Mike Z was. 18,398 on OT, save $19,800 on full-time line, minus the $7880 for Bess. We save $30,230 per year going forward.

 10010506 630001 (Postage)
o Why was an additional $51,000 expensed for this line-item? 

We had to send additional tax bills to the owners of 7000 parcels by certified mail. A
mailing service was used.

 10010506 773001 (Non-Contractual Services)
o Why was an additional $150,000 expensed for this line-item? 
o What services were provided with the over-budget funds? 
o What procurement methods were used for those non-contractual
expenses? 

o Who approved the extra $150,000 in non-contractual services?

We were over $149,140 in the Non-Contractual Services line. $38,425 (Poll Pad SW) and $1000 (ePulse SW) should have been coded to Software License Agreements. $27,692 should have been coded to Non-Major Equipment (includes 53 thermal printers
for Poll Pad SW). $270 should have been coded to Election Supplies. We were also directed to use this line for $60,227, but it represents equipment purchased on a payment plan (2 of 5). $134,350 was for mostly ESS SW/Firmware maintenance, ballot
file preparation, including audio files, GBS ValidVoter SW (that was then discontinued), KnowInk (Vote-By-Mail processing), Equipment delivery and pick up to/from Normal Polling Places for the Consolidated Election, and Onsite support for Election Night tabulation. We also incurred an unanticipated $2240 expense to dispose of our Kardveyer, $120 to reprocess a mail file (relating to tax billing) and $750 for tax extension training for the new Tax Administrator.

 10010506 831001 (Purchase/Election Equip.)
o Why were there $91,000 in expenses when there was nothing in the original budget?

We purchased 25 ExpressVotes on a payment plan (3 of 5) and 173 thermal printers to complement the new Poll Pad SW.
 Were any of the above over budget expenses reported to the Finance Committee/County Board before they were expensed? 
 Have all of these budget overruns been addressed in the 2026 budget assuming the expenses are projected to also occur at similar amounts in 2026?

William Bessler
McLean County Board Member-District–