A proposal to remove the McLean County auditor as an elected official is one step closer to making it on the November ballot — 10 years after residents voted against the same issue.
The County Board’s executive committee unanimously approved a resolution Monday to eliminate the elected office overseeing county finances and bookkeeping, and moving the issue to the full county board for a vote at its regular monthly meeting on Thursday.
Currently, Michelle Anderson is the county auditor.
At the executive committee meeting, county administrator Cassy Taylor said a majority of counties in the state do not elect their auditors.
“We’re only one of 16 counties in Illinois that has this elected position, and there are many, many counties that do not and function just fine,” she said.
County board member William Friedrich said the finance committee — which he chairs — “does its duty to make sure everything is above board" related to the county's finances. He said the county pays external auditor Clifton Larsen Allen roughly $125,000 to conduct audits that is in addition to the elected auditor’s work.
“They’ve been doing a very thorough job,” he said of the firm.
When board vice chair Elizabeth Johnston asked whether the county plans to maintain some form of internal audit services, Taylor said it was too soon to tell.
“It’s a little early to have all of the designs and plans in place for what this would look like,” she said, adding the county is looking at redundancies and exploring what it might look like not to have an elected county auditor.
Taylor said the county is looking to other counties that do not have elected auditors for guidance.
Peoria County removed its elected auditor office in 2022.
Meanwhile, the county is updating its Enterprise Resource Planning [ERP] software, which Taylor said should make bookkeeping more efficient for all departments and likely impact any auditor roles. ERP is the system that manages budgets, grants, and soon, human resources information.
Other items
The executive committee also voted to move forward with notifying its intent to withdraw from an intergovernmental agreement to provide public transportation to the rural counties of DeWitt, Ford, Iroquois, Kankakee, Livingston, Logan, Macon, Mason and McLean through the Show Bus initiative. [Transportation between McLean and Livingston counties has been suspended due to funding loss, according to the Show Bus website.]
Show Bus is funded through a federal grant allocated by the Illinois Department of Transportation.
During public comment, Show Bus Director Laura Dick said current grant agreements for fiscal year 2025 are in the works, and she fears moving forward with steps to withdraw could “jeopardize the system itself today.” She urged the committee to delay the resolution “to avoid confusion and give time for an orderly transition.”
Executive committee members voted unanimously to approve, though Taylor said rural residents within McLean County should not expect service disruptions if plans to withdraw move forward. She did not say the same for other counties serviced by Show Bus.
For the county to formally withdraw from the agreement, a second vote would need to pass through the executive committee, then the full county board.
Taylor added the county can apply for future grant funding to cover transportation servicing rural McLean County alone.
Executive committee members also were supposed to vote on whether to approve a Mental Health and Public Safety Advisory Group to oversee the spending of shared sales tax dollars reserved for behavioral health purposes, but county board chair Catherine Metsker pulled the agenda item.
She did not say whether it would be on the agenda at next month’s meeting.
