The chair of the McLean County Board said she is not yet satisfied with the solution making up for an error in tax collection.
A no-interest loan to the Village of Hudson totals just over $81,000 to account for tax revenue it won't see until next year.
“I think I’ll be satisfied when we see the fruits of those efforts, and we see that there are no more errors being sent out officially on the tax documents,” said Elizabeth Johnston in an interview for WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
“We do want to have those backstops. We do want to have these double checks to make sure that things are as they should be before they go to the printer,” Johnston said.
McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael said in an email sent to county officials before the county board’s meeting on July 16 that the mix-up was a "data entry human error."
She said her office has put in additional safeguards to ensure bills go out properly in the future.
"In talking with [colleagues] around the state, we also agree to avoid too much reliance on institutional knowledge. What this means is, you never know when a vital staff member may leave unexpectedly. We are working on building and leveraging easy to navigate geography, structures and systems," Michael said in the email, which she sent to WGLT.
The county clerk's office has faced previous errors regarding tax collection. Last year, incorrect tax bills were sent to property owners in the Olympia and Ridgeview school districts.
“We are still in the situation where the clerk has described that this is a complicated process, but we’ve also had an employee that has done many, many, many hours of training,” Johnston said. “We do have resources available that I’m hoping that they’re taking advantage of, as far as colleagues across the state, on how do we make sure that this is an efficient process, that it is a clear process and it’s accurate.”
Last year’s fix required an additional $40,000 on mail and printing to taxpayers in the two school districts. The loan to the Village of Hudson gives it the money it was counting on without the cost of a separate mailing.
“This year, we did corrected bills for people that were overcharged, but to save some of the costs, say the cost of mailings, what we worked out was this loan…where next year the additional money that they should have been charged will be on their bill for next year,” she said.
“I know that the Village of Hudson has been working very hard… to make sure that the residents are aware of the issued and how it was corrected.”
Johnston said the county is now focusing on how to prevent what she said has been recognized as a pattern. She said it is the role of the county board to continue to ask questions of the independently elected office.
“It is up to them about how they run the office, but we can be encouraging those conversations to get the information and to clarify what that process is,” she said.
Records management system
McLean County is continuing its transition to Enterprise Resource Planning [ERP] for records management, and the project manager is citing hold ups.
This comes from another independently elected office holder: McLean County Auditor Michelle Anderson.
A report to the McLean County Executive Committee on July 13 indicated: “RISK ALERT: The Auditor’s continued delay in performing tasks is making issues worse."
The report presented by consultant Sanford Hess lists 11 tasks assigned to the auditor that are past due.
“This is something where you know she is operating her office according to her own kind of goals and objectives,” said Johnston. “There have been substantial efforts to reach out and work with her.”
Johnston said the county has spent the first half of 2026 working to make sure the audit for the county was completed. She said last year’s “significant delays” hindered operations.
Now, her attention is on ERP.
“Initially, we were worried about [how] the system is only allowed to have two years open at a time. So, until we close 2025, we can’t do budgeting for 2027. Or if we want to do budgeting for 2027, but 2025 is not closed, then we can’t be looking at an active 2026 year,” she said. “And so, it does create difficulties in the budgeting process."
In a meeting last week, Johnston said she met with the program manager, the county’s IT director and others about the backlog.
“The backlog that we’re seeing on capital assets, on some of the data conversion and our bid management system, it is piling up,” Johnston said. “Every month that we go is only creating a bigger pile of things to process so that we can close 2026.”
Several members of the county board's executive committee have expressed frustration with Anderson’s office over what they describe as a “bottleneck.”
In a reply to WGLT, Anderson said she told county administration that this transition to a new records system, while in the midst of completing the county's annual audit, would present challenges.
"The [county] treasurer [Rebecca McNeil] and I were clear at the onset of the project 2-3 years ago that implementing during busy season would strain our office resources," Anderson said. "With [the audit] year end ending just days/weeks ago, I have begun working through the list."
Johnston indicated that a position in the auditor's office has been open for close to two years that she suggested could assist in the ERP transition.
“This goes back to why it hasn’t been filled, goes back to this is an independently elected official,” she said. “They run their departments the way that they see fit. It has not been administration’s policy or procedure, or authority, to hire on behalf of an elected official in their department.”
Johnston confirmed county administrator Cassy Taylor has been exploring legal avenues through the McLean County State's Attorney's Office civil division to remedy the situation, though she said at this time, it's not clear what those might be.
Johnston said in matters such as this and in performing the external audit, the county does incur additional costs from delays.
Johnston noted the county completed a clean audit on schedule in 2025.
Anderson has served as county auditor since 2009.
The Bridge
Bloomington’s non-congregate shelter village The Bridge has been open for six months. Last year, the county board awarded $1.3 million in grant money for its construction, with money from the shared sales tax which Bloomington and Normal collect.
Johnston noted the shelter quickly started to provide a pathway to permanent housing.
“Even our colleagues at the [McLean County] Health Department have noted the fact that people that were constantly getting picked up and constantly involved in the services are now seen sitting at the bus stop outside the health department,” she said. “So instead of getting picked up by the police, they’re getting picked up by the bus to go to their full-time job and to their full-time homes.”
The 48-cabin shelter village currently has a wait list. While the adjustment has not been perfect, Johnston recognizes the work that has been accomplished.
“We’re very excited about what it’s doing,” she said. “There was a snapshot that was done fairly recently of the homeless population. If I remember correctly, there were three in that snapshot, and so it has gone a long way.”
Johnston was referring to an annual Point in Time [PIT] count, which on Jan. 29, found three people staying outside in below zero temperatures shortly after the Bridge opened. The year before, on a night that wasn't quite as cold, the PIT was close to 40.
While the shelter was credited for a drop in that number since the year before, advocates worried federal policy changes could erase the work.
The Continuum of Care, an 11-county network of volunteers who conducts the PIT count, also warned that the shelter, while holding a considerable impact, could make people harder to find than before.
“…I would say that we don’t believe that the transitional or even permanent supportive housing has been met. We are working,” Johnston said. “One of the grants that’s going out this year is for the Center for Human Services, and they are building out an apartment complex that is for permanent housing for people who have mental health issues.”
