Raising taxes is about as popular as “pink slime,” and it’s not always the best way to run government. Maybe that’s why Peoria County Board Members Allen Mayer (D-Dist. 6), Stephen Morris (R-Dist. 10) and County Board Chairman-in-waiting Andrew Rand (D-4) pushed replacing a modest tax hike to help the Highway Department with an internal loan minutes before the Board met Nov. 13.

Although a joint meeting of the Executive and Finance Committees signed off on the change, reportedly neither the Transportation Committee nor Peoria County Administrator Lori Curtis Luther were informed until shortly before the regular Board meeting.

As distasteful as raising taxes is, cutting expenditures also is unpalatable to folks who need roads, police and other government services and programs, so budget butchering is no more sensible as the exclusive remedy to monetary woes.

Somebody seems to be playing chicken, but we’re all passengers.

Peoria County is grappling with a $3.5 million deficit in its 2015 budget, and fiscal conservatives may be tempted to take the meat-cleaver approach, hacking away with the delicacy of flies in a slaughterhouse. But budgets have obligations, too – there’s only so much cutting in a financial structure with mandates.

Declining revenues from sales taxes and property taxes, plus rising costs for various requirements, is behind the County’s projected shortfall. Instead of replacing lost revenues, meathead cutters seem to eye eliminating “pork” (although one person’s pork may be another person’s sustenance).

On a household basis, of course, families often consider not just reducing spending but increasing revenues, whether a second job, selling assets, refinancing, etc.

As The Community Word goes to press, the Peoria County Board is considering one way to increase revenues – hiking some fees – but is otherwise borrowing from cash reserves (to be covered by moving up to $1 million from the County’s “Keystone” account, derived from a State loan limited to spending on infrastructure and economic development). So filing fees in the Circuit Clerk and the Recorder of Deeds offices could go up $10. But the shelved idea to increase property taxes 2.5 cents per $100 of Equalized Assessed Valuation to benefit the Highway Department was dropped by the Nov. 13 action. If OK’d, that would’ve meant a $100,000 property paying about $8 more a year to salt, build and repair roads and bridges.

Such a small addition could have raised $800,000 in new revenue, unlike borrowing “old” revenue (which must be repaid). Assuming the budget can be addressed without substantial new money implies that expenditures are headed for the grinder. (In fact, planned work to upgrade Willow Knolls Drive in order to turn the County road over to the City of Peoria may now be postponed – unlike the costs to maintain it.)

The County is already streamlining, Luther said

“County staff has worked hard to minimize costs using energy efficiency to reduce utilities and [is] investigating other opportunities for savings,” she said. “There are limitations to what can be cut.”

Indeed, reasonable people may see that wholesale hacking of expenses is baloney.

Excluding the Highway Department – assuming residents want roads and bridges repaired (even if some Board members think taxpayers don’t want to help pay for them) – there are line items that are untouchable: utilities/water/sewer/Internet fees for County facilities, loan/bond payments, mandatory expenses (i.e. auditing), commodities (toilet paper, pens), equipment (computers, trucks).

Still, some hamloafs may think if there are 300 desktop computers, the County could get by with 240, or 100 vehicles could be 80 … all despite potential consequences as unappetizing as sausage-making.

To put it into perspective, Peoria County’s 2015 budget has an operating budget of about $112 million. Some $20 million of that is in non-discretionary expenses – obligations such as $2.5 million in gas, electric, water and telephone for County facilities, according to the Finance Department. Plus, there’s $1 million to feed prisoners at the George P. Shadid Law Enforcement Center, more than $2 million in fuel and maintenance for the County’s fleet, more than $3 million in state-mandated court-related expenses, and about $2 million directly related to other public-safety services. The biggest chunk is in personnel – $69 million, or 62 percent of the operating budget – much of which is contracted.

Delving into the beef of the budget, the County as employer is required to contribute to pensions, and four elected officials take part: Circuit Clerk Robert Spears, County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll, Recorder of Deeds Nancy Horton, and County Treasurer Edward T. O’Connor. County contributions to Horton, Ingersoll and Spears last year were about $10,000 each. For O’Connor, the County contributed $214,121.17 just in 2013 – a 131 percent increase from 2012.

It’s not improper but it is an obligation.

O’Connor, who’s making $94,362.88 this year, participates in the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s “Elected County Officials” plan, and the County has contributed an average of $84,000 annually since 2004 to the former banker, first elected in 1998. Again, the County must do so (unlike the General Assembly not paying its “required” share to state workers’ pensions over decades).

IMRF spokesman John Krupa said O’Connor’s situation is unique.

“Peoria County adopted ECO [the Elected County Officials plan, when it] was created in 1997,” he said, “then rescinded participation in 2000, which closed enrollment to any new members.”

Now, O’Connor is the County’s only elected official still in that plan.

“Set by statute, ECO participants contribute 7.5 percent of every paycheck,” Krupa continued. “Like some other participating counties, employer contributions, member contributions, and investment income have been inadequate to cover the pension liabilities associated with the ECO plan retirements in Peoria County.”

Luther – who started in Peoria County in August 2011, inheriting the situation – disagrees, noting that ECO had no assets when it started.

“Peoria County has always funded all IMRF funds, including ECO, at the amounts required,” she said. “While the employee portion remained 7.5 percent, the employer portion increase[d] in order to cover both future estimated liabilities and the current unfunded value of the assets. Thus, the employer percentage required to pay this liability needed to be quite high. When the ECO plan became closed to new members, the amount of liability grew as existing members retired and the number of employees active in the program dwindled. Now we are down to one active employee, so the entire repayment of the ECO plan is tied to this person.

“Even if there are no more employees active in the ECO program, we would need to pay off the liability,” she continued. “The unfunded liability is just over $5 million as of Dec. 31, 2013. The problem is that the ‘covered payroll’ is the mechanism to pay off this liability, and the Treasurer is the only one left as ‘covered payroll,’ thus the enormous employer contribution rate.”

Elsewhere, Luther said she’s leading a multipronged effort to deal with the shortfall.

“Peoria County will continue to be fiscally responsible,” she said. “In addition to holding positions vacant and offering a voluntary retirement incentive to reduce the workforce, Peoria County has sought other creative opportunities to cut costs. Since 2011 the County has reduced 27 positions from 919 to 892.”

Nevertheless, the implication may be that some would rather avoid raising taxes and instead contemplate the gut-and-cut, carve-and-trim, slice-and-dice impulse.