Budget battle continues in Kane County Circuit Clerk's office
KANE COUNTY (WBBM) --- The legal volleying continues over the Kane County Circuit clerk's budget.
Circuit Clerk Deb Seyller says she doesn't have enough money to run her office. The Kane County Board has denied her request for additional funding, so she says she intends to sued them. Seyller, in a prepared statement, said she was "disappointed" with the board's decision but felt she had "no other option" after her attempts to "establish a dialogue" with county leaders. Seyller has said she needs the $555,000 to fund the mandated functions of her office.
"They're asking the Circuit Clerk to do her job without enough money to do so," said Seyller's attorney, Dean Frieders.
The suit asks for a preliminary injunction to force the county to pay the additional funding she requested until the court case is resolved. The suit charges the county with being "arbitrary and capricious" in its discretionary funding and asks Judge Michael Colwell to find the county board "statutorily obligated" to pay "reasonable and necessary" expenses of Seyller's office.
The board chairman Tuesday filed a counter-claim against her and is suggesting Seyller pay for the shortfall herself. "The counterclaim establishes that back in February and March, she made a determination that she was going to increase the size of her staff that would assure that she would be over budget. That was a deliberate decision to put her over budget even though she wasn't granted the funding to do so. So, our belief is that if that's the case, she needs to be held responsible for that," said Board Chairwoman Karen McConnaughay. "She's still able to provide the services that she is required to provide and has not been able to demonstrate where she is unable to do so. We feel she has been reasonably funded."
"She has special funds that are based on fees that have been collected in the courts that she basically controls. She has ample money within that budget in order to cover these costs and she's been unwilling to use those funds," added McConnaughay.
But Frieders says there is no extra money and Seyller has cut as far as she can. "She has made every effort to cut and made every effort to transfer expenses to other sources of funding and what remains is the leanest, most efficient staff that she can have to handle the hundreds of thousands of cases that are processed in her office on a daily basis."
"It's unfortunate that it has come to this. I just hope we can come to some kind of compromise at no expense to the taxpayers," said McConnaughay.
The two sides are in court on October 15th.
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