With plans to present a draft as early as July, the Kane County Board is continuing discussions about the county’s fiscal year 2027 budget.
Central to its plans thus far are planned 5% cuts in expenses from the previous year, with the goal of using little to none of the county’s cash reserves to balance the coming year’s budget — a priority that has been years in the making.
Kane County has been facing a looming budget shortfall in its general fund in recent years, which its board has been solving since 2023 by dipping into the county’s cash reserves.
But county staff has long cautioned that doing so won’t be an option forever, and that the county must make significant cuts or find new revenue before 2027 to avoid dipping into its required 90-day reserves — leaving the board with the task of finding new revenue or cutting costs to avoid spending down its reserve funds.
The county initially tried a 0.75% sales tax referendum question, but it was overwhelmingly shot down by voters in 2025.
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Then, after the referendum question failed, the board took a variety of measures to close the gap. It ultimately ended up using about $6 million in cash reserves to balance the county’s fiscal year 2026 budget, down from about $27 million used to balance the budget the year prior.
Recently, the board indicated its intention to use little to no reserves to balance the 2027 budget, which leaves its members with the task of balancing requests from county departments and elected offices with the county’s available funds.
Earlier this month, the board passed a few measures that begin to set the stage for the county’s budget plans and considerations.
For example, the board approved 2.5% raises for non-union county employees, including county department heads and Animal Control employees, and a proposal to use 2.7% as the planned property tax levy hike for the year in the upcoming budgeting process. County officials said 2.7% is the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, to be used for tax extensions in 2026, for taxes to be paid in 2027.
The board also opted to allocate a portion of the county’s Grand Victoria Riverboat funds for the year toward internal county projects, after removing two county board proposals — contracts for the county’s lobbying services and for a county strategic plan.
Also in recent weeks, county departments and elected offices have been presenting their proposed budgets to county board committees.
Elected officials — such as the county’s sheriff, state’s attorney and treasurer — have more control over their individual budgets than do department heads, who report to the county board. But the board has the ultimate authority over making Kane County’s overall budget and deciding how much each of its offices and departments will be allocated for the year.
Now, with just over six months to go before the next fiscal year begins on Dec. 1, the county board and other county leaders are discussing plans and priorities as the budgeting process ramps up.
The county’s budget is broken largely into two sections, the general fund and the various special funds, which represent dollars that are restricted to certain uses. The general fund is the fund that has been facing a shortfall.
Last year, the county’s general fund expenses totaled a little over $130 million.
For fiscal year 2027, the county is looking to reduce how much it allocates in the general fund to offices and departments by 5% compared to last year, according to documents included in the agenda for the board’s Finance Committee meeting on Wednesday.
The county is asking its elected offices to cut a little more than $4 million as compared to their respective allocations for fiscal year 2026, and for county departments to cut about $1 million in total as compared to last year.
The county is, however, projecting increases in, for example, its health dental contributions for employees, which is paid for via the general fund.
That leaves the total projected general fund expenses for 2027 at around $126.5 million, several million dollars below last year.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Kane County Finance Director Kathleen Hopkinson said that the health dental cost of nearly $17 million projected for 2027 — nearly $1.5 million higher than the previous year — is “still subject to change” because the county is currently reviewing its overall health and dental insurance programs.
But board member Clifford Surges, who chairs the Human Services Committee, said the county has been staring down this increase for years, suggesting that the county has “hit that wall” on putting off an increase in the costs.
Board member Bill Lenert, who chairs the Finance Committee, added that attrition in the number of county employees could also bring that number down somewhat.
Lenert, at the meeting, pointed out that the county is largely in agreement about the planned 5% cuts, which is meant to enable the board to balance the county budget without dipping into cash reserves.
That’s particularly important, Hopkinson said, because the county has been budgeting the use of reserves to pay for expenses in its budgets for years now. A graph in Hopkinson’s presentation to the Finance Committee on Wednesday shows the general fund’s cash balance gradually decreasing over the past several years.
“If we do another year with using reserves to pay for expenses, we will be hitting the bottom,” Hopkinson said at the meeting.
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Even if the board is able to pass a balanced budget, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is in the clear from using reserves, Lenert noted. There may be situations in 2027 that cause the county to incur additional costs they’re not aware of at this point, he pointed out, adding that the county’s reserve use situation is “ongoing” and will continue to be monitored.
In light of the conversation surrounding the county’s reserve fund use, Wednesday’s meeting also yielded some discussion about the county’s special reserve fund.
At the meeting, board member Mavis Bates asked what the fund is for and whether those funds are available to be used.
Hopkinson said that, more than a decade ago, the county board decided to take some of its reserves from the general fund and create a separate fund. It’s not required by law, but was a board decision, and how those funds are used is also the board’s call.
“It just feels, to me, like we locked it up and threw away the key,” Bates said.
Lenert said that the balance in the special reserve fund is for when the county has no reserves left it can use or has an emergency situation that requires funds. Board member Bill Roth also pointed to the need for special reserves in case of emergencies.
As for revenues for the coming year, Lenert noted that the county doesn’t yet know all of its expected revenue numbers, so it’s not certain yet whether the county will be able to balance the budget without reserves. But the board is expecting to get those numbers in the next few weeks and then, in tandem with the expense reductions, will aim to present a balanced budget, he said.
Following the departments’ and offices’ recent budget presentations, the overall county budget would need to be presented to the Finance Committee and ultimately to the full board, which would then vote to put it on public display. After that, it can be voted on and approved by the board.
Lenert said at Wednesday’s meeting that a balanced 2027 budget is expected to come to the board for consideration as early as July.
Board member and Finance Committee vice chair Jarett Sanchez said at the meeting that he appreciated that the budgeting process has gotten underway earlier than prior years.
And he also pointed to what the passage of a balanced budget might mean for the county’s future.
Referring to the failed sales tax referendum, Sanchez suggested that the county “failed … to really show that we had, kind of, reduced our spending in a way that we brought it down to as far as we could go.”
So, going forward, Sanchez said he would like to see the county pass a budget that doesn’t rely on reserves or tax increases, to essentially show the public the results of that, what had to cut and that the board “still (has) to move in this other direction.”