Moultrie County Board Meeting; Adoption of Budget – Educational Video For Shelby County?

Moultrie Co., Ill. (ECWd) –

The Moultrie County Board met last night to conduct their regular course of business, which had been postponed from last week due to something not getting posted properly for the regular meeting.

Moultrie County’s seat is Sullivan, IL., 23 miles northeast of Shelby County’s seat of Shelbyville. As can be seen in the video below or at this link, the county board and the citizens conducted themselves like adults and took care of the county business with what appears to be only one hiccup, which was dealt with properly.  Compare this meeting video to those from Shelby County Board meetings and it makes you wonder how there can be such a huge difference in human behavior only 23 miles apart.

The hiccup was when board member Travis Phelps motioned to amend the budget for a line item for the State’s Attorney.

“That’s the salary of the State’s Attorney investigator. I’d like to have that set at $30,000.00”

County boards have no authority to set compensation for employees of elected office holders. We are going to assume the rest of the board members present knew and understood his motion to set a salary for an employee in an elected office was completely outside the county board’s authority and violates state law. We are making this assumption because his motion died. After all, it could not get a second. This particular motion to amend the budget was the only one that failed.

(55 ILCS 5/3-9006) (from Ch. 34, par. 3-9006)
    Sec. 3-9006. Internal operations of office; simultaneous county board tenure.
    (a) Internal operations of the office. The State’s Attorney shall control the internal operations of the State’s Attorney’s office and procure the necessary equipment, materials, and services to perform the duties of that office.
    (b) Simultaneous county board tenure. A duly appointed Assistant State’s Attorney may serve as an Assistant State’s Attorney and, simultaneously, serve as a county board member for a county located outside of the jurisdiction of the State’s Attorney Office that the Assistant State’s Attorney serves. An Assistant State’s Attorney serving as a county board member is subject to any internal mechanisms established by the State’s Attorney to avoid conflicts of interest in the performance of the individual’s duties as an Assistant State’s Attorney.
(Source: P.A. 102-56, eff. 7-9-21.)

A person sitting in front of me stated that Phelps was going to be the next county board chairman. With the above attempt to control the internal operations of an elected office holder, we hope those who nominate and elect their next chair understand their selection needs to be a person who understands their legislative powers and duties, which does not include trying to set salaries for employees in offices of elected officials.

The county board adopted its next fiscal year budget and managed to do it, allegedly without some outside consultant holding their hand and costing taxpayers more money.  We mention this because Shelby County has not adopted a budget yet, and with two recent resignations of board members some citizens are pointing fingers at the former chairman for not hiring an outside consultant to do the job of the county board, never mind the fact a county chairman has no independent power to do that unless given such power by the board.

Shelby County citizens could learn a lot from watching the video.  There was no yelling, screaming, interrupting, or outright rudeness at the meeting, unlike regular county board meetings of Shelby County.  During public comment there was a positive interaction and what appeared to be an actual civil conversation, something missing from Shelby County meetings and its residents.