This year, Lake
County's budget-makers will have to struggle with prosperity.
County and municipal
officials have begun setting spending goals for 2014 that for the first time in
years will be higher, not lower, than the previous budget because of the new
1.5 percent local income tax the state will begin collecting Oct. 1 from all
county residents and workers.
Fiscal officials are
gleefully preparing to receive an additional $24 million Jan. 1 to be spread
among the 19 cities, towns and county government. And 2015 will bring millions
more in additional tax dollars when the full impact of the income tax hits
local wallets.
The question now is
whether local government can restrain itself after years of property tax levy
freezes and caps that have forced it to skin back payrolls and spending dreams.
The
County Council, which passed the income tax in May, will receive an
estimated bonus of at least $15 million in new revenues next year. However,
that won't be enough to cover the wish list county elected officials and
department heads already have assembled.
Lake Coroner Merrilee
Frey said she needed an additional $112,000 next year to ensure she could pay
doctors to perform the many autopsies she orders in cases of homicides,
suicides and questionable deaths.
"They do one to
four every day, six days a week," Frey said.
Hobart Township
Assessor Julia Wolek said her staff of five has been decimated by people on
leave.
"I desperately
need another employee," Wolek said. "I'm down practically to me
and my chief deputy. I'm seriously considering putting a sign on the door that
we're out to lunch."
Some 50 officials
generated a wave of spending-increase requests for more full-time and part-time
employees, more office supplies, gasoline, money for higher rent and utility
bills, and salary increases ranging from 2 percent to 5 percent for the bulk of
the county's 1,695 full-time employees whose pay has been frozen since 2006.
Then there is the $5
million Sheriff John Buncich said is needed to maintain sanitation, health care
and inmate safety improvements in the Lake County Jail as required by the U.S.
Department of Justice.
Another $7 million
will be requested to shore up employee pension and health care benefits and
more than $3 million to maintain the county's bridges and flood-control
waterways.
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