McHenry County Board members vote in favor of referendum to eliminate elected coroner role

An ad hoc committee voted Friday in support of a resolution establishing a binding referendum asking voters whether the McHenry County coroner should be eliminated as an elected office.

After the departure of former McHenry County Coroner Anne Majewski earlier this year, the Coroner's Office underwent two evaluations, one performed by the McHenry County Sheriff's Office and one from Dr. Dennis Kellar – both of which highlighted a number of security and quality assurance issues.

Although the coroner is an elected position, state statute offers very few qualifications to run for the position. Candidates need only to be 18 years old and a registered voter living in McHenry County.

McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks said Friday that the Coroner’s Office, through decades of neglect, is broken and the solution cannot be to hope for someone with strong qualifications to be elected.

“Hope is not a plan,” Franks said. “That’s like planning for retirement by playing the lottery.”

Although state statute requires that a replacement coroner be named within 60 days of a formal declaration of the vacancy, the results of the evaluations caused Franks to hold off on naming an appointment to determine the best way forward for the Coroner’s Office.

McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally said an effective coroner, from the perspective of law enforcement, is someone with specialized knowledge with respect to how investigations work; the most conducive way of finding such a candidate is to appoint them with input from himself and McHenry County Sheriff Bill Prim.

The proposed resolution – which would appear on the ballot of November’s general election if the McHenry County Board approves it – underwent two amendments during the meeting.

At the behest of County Board member Robert Nowak, the committee voted to remove negative language related to the previous management of the coroner’s office. Nowak said the resolution is for the betterment of McHenry County and not to show that it was poorly operated or incorrectly managed in the past.

The second amendment added language stating that the County Board wishes to professionalize the Coroner’s Office by hiring a candidate using best management practices.

Two committee members voted against the amended resolution: Nowak and Mary McCann.

Nowak said he was in agreement that the coroner should be appointed but he wanted to see established credentials for the position before he voted to support the referendum. Nowak recommended the use of an outside search firm to aid in the hiring to avoid the appointment of any candidate being politically motivated.

McCann said one of the big elephants in the room is how to pay the appointee a salary that is commensurate with the board’s desired qualifications because it likely would be more than the roughly $110,000 salary that is being offered now.

Franks said he would like Kenneally and Prim to have input in the hiring and didn’t rule out the use of a hiring firm to take the politics out of the decision.

McHenry County Board member Paula Yensen said she always believed it was important for voters to have a say in their governance and this situation provides an opportunity for the people of McHenry County to decide what role the coroner should play.

Franks said the resolution will appear on the agenda of the Dec. 17 McHenry County Board meeting.

The proposed referendum, if approved, could see the office eliminated by Nov. 30, 2020, meaning the three people vying for the office – former McHenry County Board member Michael Rein, Angela Byrnes of Crystal Lake and Mark Justen of Justen Funeral Home and Crematory – might not have an office to oversee by the time they’re sworn in.

McHenry County Administrator Peter Austin said three questions need to be addressed ahead of the general election in the event the referendum passes: what the credentials of an appointed coroner candidate should be, how the appointment process should go and how the Coroner’s Office is supervised on a day-to-day basis.