Treasurer Updates

County Board Chairman Giraldo Rosales will be appointing the next County Treasurer. From the News-Gazette earlier this week:

The authority to appoint the next Champaign County treasurer will fall to County Board Chairman Giraldo Rosales.

After current Treasurer Laurel Prussing resigned, County Executive Darlene Kloeppel said she was looking into whether she — rather than the county board chairman — should be the one to appoint Prussing’s successor in a county with an elected county executive.

Rosales said there was no question the appointment should be made by the county board chairman, and the issue was settled at a meeting Tuesday morning that included him, Kloeppel, both party caucus chairmen and State’s Attorney Julia Rietz.

Full article available here, including a Republican calling for a forensic audit for the office. This follows some initial questions by the County Executive about whether the appointment by the presiding County officer may refer to the County Executive under the new form of government (more coverage on that here). In recent news, schools waiting for their tax money to be distributed by the County Treasurer's office expressed concerns about whether the late payments will be made before Prussing resigns at the end of the month. From WCIA:

By the time Champaign County Treasurer Laurel Prussing resigns on January 31, area school districts hope her office will have sent them the 2018 tax dollars they expected months ago.

Six days into the new year, and districts across the county are still waiting for tax money that typically arrives in May and June each year...

And while Prussing said that “96.5 percent of all tax levies in the county” have been distributed already, there are still school districts waiting for their payments in full.

Of the $102 million-plus in tax dollars allotted to Champaign’s Unit 4 school district, the district is still waiting to receive $3.6 million from its 2018 levy, spokesperson John Lyday said.

That full article with additional information on districts awaiting distributions here. In a recent editorial, the News-Gazette had some additional information on how Rosales plans to search for a new Treasurer to take on the troubled County office:

Rosales said he intends to use his board’s finance committee to play the role of “ad hoc search committee.” It features two county board members — one Democrat and one Republican — county Executive Darlene Kloeppel and the accountant in Kloeppel’s office.

Although Rosales said he’s now accepting applications for the $96,000-a-year post, the official vacancy date is Feb. 1. In the meantime, Prussing’s office has posted an opening for a deputy treasurer, a move that could complicate circumstances for whoever is named treasurer.

Full editorial here with an opinion on putting qualifications over partisanship in local races. In the case of this appointment, however, State law requires the replacement to be of the same party. As the editorial puts it:

State law requires that the appointee be a member of the same political party of the individual being replaced. But there have to be plenty of Democratic accountants or their professional equivalents who could do what’s going to be the very difficult job of getting the office up to its previous level of professionalism.

From County Board members discussing the issue, it appears that both parties are hoping for a qualified candidate who can successfully deal with the backlog.