WurfWhile

I take no pleasure in the DuPage County Budget mess - it hurts real people through no fault of their own through cuts in critical programs and services, and job losses. But in thinking about it a bit last night, and about how angry DuPage State’s Attorney Joe Birkett has been about the budget of late, I got to thinking about J.R. McBride, the one Republican county board member that Joe Birkett endorsed, and in a primary fight against DuPage County Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom-backed incumbent Grant Eckhoff in the 2006 election. J.R. McBride ran on a platform that in parts echoed what I ran on in 2004, including transparent government principles and fiscal responsibility

“I will make the Board’s deliberations public whenever possible, including postings on the County Board website in an easy-to-read format that everybody can use…. I will work to make the County Board budget more transparent to taxpaying voters…[c]itizens and government watchdog groups should not need to sue to see the county budget.”

But I also remembered J.R. McBride as suggesting that there were savings to be found within the DuPage County budget, and being critical of tax increases. So I took a look to refresh my memory today, and here’s what McBride said to John Biemer of the Chicago Tribune March 10, 2006 (pdf):

“McBride criticized the board for increasing the real estate tax levy for the first time in a decade this fall as it passed the county’s $532 million budget, adding about $7 to the annual tax bill of a $290,000 home. Now the board is exploring new revenue sources, including a retail sales tax or taxes on cigarettes and alcohol.

‘I believe we’ve got to live within the budget,’ McBride said, although he did not provide any specific proposals for which programs should be cut.

‘[Grant Eckhoff, McBride’s primary opponent and the incumbent] has said in the past, `[The budget] is cut to the bone.’ I don’t believe that,’ McBride said. ‘There’s always things we can look at and try to make more efficient.’”

I bet McBride wishes he had been able to see a more transparent, comprehensive and comprehensible budget before he ran - yet now, here he is facing a $50 million budget deficit largely not of his making. I’ve already suggested (back when running in 2003 and since) that I believe mass transit expansion is one key to decreasing road maintenance and development costs (a major part of the budget) and spurring more growth (and by extension tax dollars) among other benefits. J.R. McBride’s platform on mass transit is vague, although it sounds like it could be progressive.

Back in the March 10, 2006 article incumbent county board member Grant Eckhoff challenged McBride, saying, “‘Tell me what you’re going to cut?’ …’I think it’s no secret that if we stay with the programs that we’ve got now, we’ve got to find new revenue streams.’” McBride had no specific answers then - today, according to yesterday’s Daily Herald article, he seems to support a sales tax referendum. We’ll see what McBride, Grant Eckhoff (who got elected back after primary defeat due to county board member John Noel’s untimely death), and the other members of the all-Republican DuPage County Board come up with for cuts, taxes and fees in the new budget, likely at the end of this week. I wish them luck - for all of our sakes. It would have been better to address the problems long before they became disastrous. But here we are with the crisis overshadowing the county, and a county board trying to find the best solution among bad solutions.