Peoria Standard

Knox County Treasurer Robin Davis gave her support for a bill that would amend the election code to allow small counties to dissolve their board of election commissioners in a House Ethics and Elections Committee hearing last month. 

House Bill 2451 has been in committee since late April. It would allow the county board or county board of commissioners for counties with 100,000 residents or less to dissolve the county's municipal board of election commissioners and transfer its functions to the city clerk. 

"I believe the taxpayers deserve transparency and accountability of all financial transactions of their tax dollars," Davis told the committee. 

Davis said that the City of Galesburg has had trouble with elections commission transparency in the past. Under Illinois law, municipal election commission's salaries and expenditures should be audited by the chief circuit judge, but the Galesburg election commission could not provide its most recent audit when asked, according to Davis. 

"The City of Galesburg did turn over all the funds that they had in the election commission to the election commissioners, who open their own checking account at a separate bank so those funds are not being audited by either the city or the county," Davis said. 

With the commissioners' salaries set without any input or control from the county board, Davis said taxpayer transparency is important. She pointed out that county taxpayers have paid over $110,000 into the election commission, but did not specify over what length of time that amount has been accumulated. The commission board of Knox County allegedly increased the salaries of their directors by 10% and 20% after the county budget was adopted. 

"We had to dip into our own financial reserves to pay the wages and benefits for a service that does not benefit all of the taxpayers," Davis said. 

The election commission won't tell the county how much unused money it has in its reserve, the treasurer said. She estimated that the county would save an excess of $50,000 in the first year of dissolving the board alone.

Davis has been Knox County Treasurer for 19 years, and worked in the treasurer's office for 10 years before that. 

The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Tim Butler (R-Springfield) and Norine K. Hammond (R-Macomb).