A referendum question will appear on your November 3rd General Election ballot asking if you’d like for a new state of Illinois separate from Cook County. That decision was signed off on at Monday morning’s White County Board meeting. The meeting barely happened as there nearly wasn’t a quorum present. Board member Ron McAnulty was absent, member Clint Spencer was late, and member Ken Usery along with board chair Donnie Puckett both mentioned they were under the impression the day meeting was to be held on it’s typical Tuesday.
Additionally at the Monday morning meeting, the board voted to appropriate funds to pay for the resurfacing of about four and a half miles of Epworth Road from Maunie to the Concord area. County Highway Engineer Brian Ray explained the 1.8 million dollar project will be cost about $80,000 locally with feds picking up 1,440,000 (or 80%) and the state of Illinois responsible for the remaining $280,000.
Also on the highway front, the county board approved paying a grant administration fee for the White County Highway Department to attempt to get Rebuild Illinois funding through the Greater Wabash Regional Planning Commission. The $40,000 it would cost the county is only payable if GWRPC is able to secure that grant, according to Ray. If successful, Ray says he’s identified Sacramento Road from Brownsville to Route 45. The reason for that choice, Ray says, “Since we’ve got a potential solar development out there, we feel like there’s a need to upgrade that roadway. Greater Wabash thinks that would be a good project so they’ve encouraged us to apply. We are a member of the GWRPC so they will apply for those funds for us for free. If we get the grant, there is the administrative fee and this contract would agree to that, which would be about $40,000 and that’s only if we get the grant.”
The County Board also heard from Don Hoffman with Emling and Hoffman Accounting. He provided details from the 2019 Audit giving credit to the Sheriff’s Department for providing the reports his office asked for and wasn’t getting. “Improvements from last year: the Sheriff’s Department’s new accounting system is a big improvement from the prior year and we’re getting the reports we need now and I see the Sheriff isn’t here to hear that.” The findings, minus the Sheriff’s financial results Hoffman says, are little different from last year. That said, Hoffman offered the following notes, “Someone independent of the cash functions should be reviewing the bank reconciliations. You don’t want to have one person writing checks, recording it and doing the reconciliations without being reviewed. It’s not that you can’t trust that person, but that’s how theft happens in cities and counties.”
The county is reporting a profit for the year in the amount of $690,000. You’d think cash would be up, but for White County, that’s not the case. It’s actually down over a million dollars. Hoffman says the reason for that is the tax bills going out later as well as some of the liabilities being down and cash paid to keep those liabilities down. If the offices involved in getting tax bills out, namely the treasurer’s office can get back on schedule, Hoffman agreed it could potentially get back in line.
County Officers present for the meeting were County Clerk Beth Sell, Circuit Clerk Kelly Fulkerson, State’s Attorney Denton Aud, TB Officer Sara Hon, and Highway Engineer Brian Ray.
Lastly, of note, the agenda called for visitors to don a mask. Yet none of the individuals in attendance wore one, nor required attendees to. The White County Board will be back in regular session on Tuesday, July 14th at 7pm.
