Shelby County Vice Chairman Resigns – Budget Misinformation Grows

Shelby Co. (ECWd) –

The Shelby County Vice Chairman Mark Bennett resigned from the county board yesterday.  In this email, Bennett provided his reasoning.

“For which in the last four years the audits have disclosed procedures and policies with which need to be followed and an unwillingness by many of those employed by Shelby County, as well as the public, to accept these changes. The Constitution comes first and foremost.”

With departments that can turn in timecards indicating people were working when in fact they were on vacation (article here) , refusal to use electronic time keeping, and basically ignoring things like the forensic audit of the Sheriff’s department (article here), we can understand the frustration.

The county is now without a chairman and vice chairman, and currently we do not see any notice for a special meeting to elect a chairman and vice chairman.

A notice for a Budget Committee meeting has been published and can be viewed at this link.

We hope members of the committee read the actual law rather than listen to Tad Mayhall’s words during the last meeting.  Mayhall implied they can work from the old budget numbers if they don’t get one adopted since he was allegedly told by the Clerk they had done that in the past. We covered that misinformation in this article.

While anyone reading the actual law should be able to see you can’t do what is suggested, the circus may continue in Shelby County.  County Board member candidate Gene Price published this statement on social media.

“Call a special board meeting and with the neglect of doing any negotiation with any of the departments I think they could extend current budget and get next one in place quickly without much trouble” 

Price is the same candidate who in a video interview claimed he was required to take training when he was a county board member in Christian County.  Christian County had no record of any obligation for county board members to take training.   Basic training for county board members would be to read the actual laws that apply to them, such as the budget portion that indicates what they can or cannot do.

In counties less than 100,000 in population, remaining balances shall be available until 30 days after the close of the fiscal year but only for the authorization of the payment of obligations incurred prior to the close of the fiscal period.  In simple language, they can approve payments for things they approved during the current fiscal year but only if done within 30 days after the end of the year.

They cannot incur any other liabilities or county expenditures without a budget beginning December 1, 2024.

 “(55 ILCS 5/6-1005) (from Ch. 34, par. 6-1005)
    Sec. 6-1005. Contract or obligation in excess of appropriation. Except as herein provided, neither the county board nor any one on its behalf shall have power, either directly or indirectly, to make any contract or do any act which adds to the county expenditures or liabilities in any year anything above the amount provided for in the annual budget for that fiscal year.“

“…except as herein provided, no contract shall be entered into and no obligation or expense shall be incurred by or on behalf of a county unless an appropriation therefor has been previously made.”

It appears the legislature was pretty serious about the above provisions because the section ends with this language:

(55 ILCS 5/6-1008) (from Ch. 34, par. 6-1008)
    Sec. 6-1008. Violations. Any person who violates, or who neglects or fails to comply with, the terms of this Division commits a Class B misdemeanor. In cases of violation of this Division by action of the county board, each member of the board participating in such action shall be subject to the aforesaid sentences.
(Source: P.A. 86-962.)

The applicable law requires the adopted budget to be made available to the public for no less than 15 days before final adoption.

“Such budget shall be prepared by some person or persons designated by the county board and such budget shall be made conveniently available to public inspection and provided to the public at a public meeting at least fifteen days prior to final action thereon except that nothing in this Act shall restrict a county board or board of county commissioners from acting at a public meeting to amend a budget after making that budget available to the public and prior to final adoption.”

In most counties, the budget process begins with department heads providing their office budget information to the entity designated by the county board to prepare the budget, and from there they evaluate what they can or cannot afford and create a final budget draft for the County Board to adopt.  Considering this process happens every year it should not take a lot of time to get completed.

If the County does not get its budget adopted, it cannot do what Mayhall and now candidate Price suggest.  Hopefully, others won’t listen to that misinformation.

Within the same misinformation post, another false claim is made.

“Any board member can call for a special meeting, I believe. The issue is quorum. The other just won’t show up, effectively filibustering the funding of the County.”

Anyone reading the actual law can see the above statement is not true.

(55 ILCS 5/2-1002) (from Ch. 34, par. 2-1002)
    Sec. 2-1002. Special meetings. Special meetings of the board shall be held only when requested by at least one-third of the members of the board, or when requested by the chairman of the board, which request shall be in writing, addressed to the clerk of the board, and specifying the time and place of such meeting, upon reception of which the clerk shall immediately transmit notice, in writing, of such meeting, to each of the members of the board. The clerk shall also cause notice of such meeting to be published in some newspaper printed in the county, if any there be. In case a vacancy arises in the office of clerk, because of death or other reason, then the request shall be addressed to the circuit clerk who shall perform the duties of the clerk pursuant to this Section.
(Source: P.A. 102-434, eff. 8-20-21.)

To claim any county board member can call a special meeting does nothing but spread false information that, unfortunately, a select group eats up as fact.

All indications point to the circus continuing in Shelby County because those coming into office are not reading the law but rather working from their own opinions.