A new state law that took effect in July has the potential to make life more difficult for County Boards across the state.
McLean County Civil Assistant State's Attorney Don Knapp said the law covers budget adjustments and makes it tougher to change the spending plan.
"Any emergency appropriation, or any appropriation to the budget after the annual appropriation needs to be done by a two thirds vote," said Knapp.
This could particularly affect McLean County because board policy requires departmental spending changes to come to the county board. In many counties, departments can swap funds around at their discretion as long as it is within the same general area as the originally approved expenditure.
The situation snuck up on McLean County's lawyers just recently when a special appropriation appeared on a meeting agenda.
"The State's Attorney's office gets a book hundreds of pages thick of all the laws that went into effect and it takes us some time to work through those laws," said Don Knapp.
County Administrator Bill Wasson said such changes happen as unexpected situations occur such as equipment break downs or a need for new spending to fund a matching grant.
"They happen, obviously much more in the second half of the year and especially in the last couple months of the year than in the first part of the year because we ask departments if they have unexpected expenditures to try and figure out a way to live within budget," said Wasson.
Particularly time consuming could be the need for a roll call vote on such matters. But, the McLean County Board did just order a new audio visual system that includes voting buttons.
