On Wednesday, the Kane County Board Finance Committee recommended approval of a new collective bargaining agreement for Kane County sheriff’s officers that includes 6% raises this year and 4% raises the following two years.
The previous collective bargaining agreement — which is between the Kane County sheriff, Kane County and the Metropolitan Alliance of Police Chapter 735 — expired in November, and the parties have been engaged in negotiations about wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment, per Wednesday’s meeting agenda.
The new collective bargaining agreement, should it be approved by the full county board, would be retroactive to Dec. 1, 2024, and run until Nov. 30, 2027, per the agreement. It includes 6% raises for Kane County sheriff’s officers for the 2024-25 year, and 4% raises for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.
This is in keeping with the last contract, which guaranteed 4% annual raises from 2021 through 2024 for the officers.
The proposed new contract’s raises would not require additional money from the county until 2027, Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain said. The Sheriff’s Office intends to absorb the additional costs of the proposed salary increases into its existing budget for fiscal years 2025 and 2026, he said at Wednesday’s meeting.
In 2027, however, the office is set to request upwards of $3 million from the county to fund these negotiated salary increases, Hain told The Beacon-News. At Wednesday’s meeting, Hain attributed the projected increase for 2027 to the Sheriff’s Office currently being a “young agency” — meaning that, two years down the line, a number of officers will have attained greater seniority and therefore will be receiving higher salaries.
The approval process for the officers’ collective bargaining agreement is coming during a time of financial uncertainty within the county, however, as the county board grapples with how to close a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall next year. In recent weeks, the board has floated numerous cost-cutting suggestions, among them an attrition program for employees of county departments.
As it stands at this point in the budgeting process, county departments and offices are still putting together their budget proposals for next year, but the county board is saying there will need to be significant cuts to balance next year’s budget.
Hain said he believes his office has been “very good financial stewards” and said that the Kane County Sheriff’s Office’s salaries are still lower than those offered by some neighboring counties like McHenry County.
McHenry County, according to its most recent collective bargaining agreement, is set to offer its sheriff’s officers starting salaries that are several thousand dollars higher annually than in Kane County in the coming years.
But, while the county board looks at overall cost-cutting measures, the idea of extending budget cuts to public safety offices has previously drawn sharp criticism from Kane County elected officials like State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser, who last year suggested public safety officials like herself would sue the county if their budgets were reduced, according to past reporting.
Mosser has previously argued that it’s against state law to restrict elected officials’ control over their budget proposals, although the county board still makes the final decision as to what is budgeted to each office and department.
But, while the county continues to determine solutions for its financial woes, the sheriff’s officers’ contract, having obtained unanimous approval by the county board’s Finance Committee on Wednesday, is set to be voted on by the board’s Executive Committee at its next meeting, and then go to the full Kane County Board in June for final approval.
