Grafton Twp. Budget - like Monopoly?

The Grafton Township Board held a special meeting at the Huntley Park District last night. In the past the meeting room has sometimes been full. Last night? In addition to elected officials, ten were present, and that included a Northwest Herald reporter, Pete Gonigam and me.

Pete will probably give a more thorough report on last night's meeting, the major purpose of which was to discuss and take action on the 2012 budget. See www.firstelectricnewspaper.com

One of Huntley PD's Finest arrived about 20 minutes before the meeting and was available to keep the peace. Based on previous meetings, I figured he might be needed to protect the Supervisor from one of the trustees who has been known to leave his chair, approach the supervisor, shout at her, and present his imposing bulk in what, to me, would be a threatening manner.

The meeting started on time, and Trustee Betty Zirk immediately questioned the location in the room from which David Moore was videotaping the meeting. She set the tone of the meeting (angry, confrontational) by demanding that David Moore, husband of Supervisor Linda Moore, move to the back wall of the room.

There were four rows of chairs set up, and there were nine in the audience, plus David Moore; one in the first row, three in the second row, no one in the third row, and five seated in the fourth row. And Moore.

Now, it wasn't like he had a large movie camera from the set of Gone With the Wind or a bank of flood lights to illuminate the elected officials and catch every expression. Moore videotapes each meeting using natural light, as is permitted in the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

You can cut the tension in Grafton Township Board meetings with a knife. Maybe that's why the cop was there.  The next arguments were whether the Budget had been posted at the Township offices. Supervisor Moore said it had been. A trustee wanted to know the date. Because the meeting last night was being held at the Huntley Park District (and not at the Township office), the Supervisor could not examine the posted Budget and answer the question from the date that is probably stamped on the posted copy.

Then the trustees began going through the Budget, line by line. Not that there is anything wrong with a line-by-line inspection; however, they adjusted downward almost every item without knowledge of the expenditures within the Line. Trustee Zirk seemed to be the ringleader and offered most of the cuts.

Without knowing her business background, if any, I would guess that she has never been in the business world. You can't run a business by just blindly lopping off numbers in a budget. Reductions in line-item numbers should be well-considered, and a plan should be in place for how the business (here, the Township) will meet expenses in that category when the budgeted money runs out.

I was reminded of Sunday afternoon's Monopoly game with friends in Woodstock. Whether you win or lose, you forget it when the game is over. But that's not how it works for Grafton Township electors. They lose - every time.

Let's say, in the Accounting Services category, where the initial amount was $3,857 was cut to $2,000. Do you just tell the accountant to stop working until the beginning of the next Fiscal Year?

I waited for the trustees to pull out their green eyeshades and arm bands, but they merely slugged away with non-printing calculators to add up their new totals. Hello??? Nobody brought a laptop, so that the spreadsheet could be manipulated? The trustees criticized the Supervisor for not bringing her laptop, but no one criticized the trustees for not bringing theirs!

At one point the trustees reflected on the $50,000 budget item (Line 5790) for "Catastrophic Deduction." A Township can provide up to $25,000 for a resident who suffers a catastrophic emergency (heart transplant?) and who is without funds. One of the male trustees (Rob LaPorta, I think) said, "... or someone would come and shoot us during a meeting? Better up that to $100,000."

If a resident had made that comment, the trustees probably would have had the Huntley PD officer arrest the person for disorderly conduct. Yet the trustee got away with making the totally inappropriate remark.

The other male trustee, Gerry McMahon, commented on the cop's presence with the "policeman is there (in the Township meeting) simply because Linda (Moore) is a dictator."

With all due respect to Linda's position as elected Supervisor of Grafton Township and member of the Board, she is not much of a dictator. Board votes are consistently 4-1; that is, the four trustees against Linda Moore.

The meeting opened with a budget deficit of $52,899.
The meeting closed with a budget deficit of $252,000 (or maybe $350,000).

It's a good thing it didn't last longer.