Incumbent Shepro seeks second term to Kane County Board

WAYNE – Incumbent Kane County Board member Kenneth Shepro said he wants to be re-elected to a second term to see some goals through to completion.

Shepro, of Wayne, is seeking the Republican nomination for County Board District 12 in the June 28 primary. Shepro’s primary opponent, St. Charles resident William Roth, did not respond to several voice mail messages seeking an interview about his candidacy.

District 12 includes Wayne, St. Charles and a portion of Geneva. The winner of the Republican primary would face St. Charles Democrat Steve Bruesewitz in the Nov. 8 general election. Bruesewitz is unopposed in the Democratic primary.

“The challenge is the budget, the finances and new legislation,” Shepro said. “It’s important to have continuity and I think I have institutional memory that is more than most people on the board have.”

Shepro is chairman of the Kane County Republican Party, had previously served eight years as an attorney for the Kane County Board under Karen McConnaughay and was a 20-year member of the Kane County Regional Planning Commission.

His number one goal in his first term was a fair county redistricting map, which he considers one of his accomplishments.

“I am very proud that the map was adopted was approved unanimously,” Shepro said. “The map was fair to everybody and respected such things as municipal boundaries. We don’t have any districts that look like a distorted pretzel or something.”

As a county board member, Shepro said he was honored to be chosen by his colleagues to serve as vice chairman of the board.

“I have tried to do what the job is supposed to be – which is to be a resource for everybody. I think I have proven the ability to work cooperatively and usefully with what is, in many ways, a very inexperienced board compared to recent years,” Shepro said.

Still, Shepro said the biggest challenge facing the county is financial.

When Kane County got its share of the federal CARES Act funds, Shepro said he was instrumental in making sure that fire districts received an allocation, where they would otherwise not have gotten it.

Shepro is the attorney for the Fox River and Countryside Fire Protection District, which covers 38 square miles and serves about 25,000 residents in Campton Hills, Wayne and St. Charles townships in Kane and DuPage counties.

Most county residents are served by fire districts, not large municipal fire departments, Shepro said.

“By getting separate grant allocations to fire districts, they were able to stand on the same footing as large municipal fire departments,” Shepro said.

In recognizing that the county has numerous job openings that go unfilled, Shepro said it was his idea to have a central listing of all the vacancies and how long they have been posted.

One of Kane County’s employment problems is the difference between what it pays and what employees could earn in nearby counties.

“Our employees are wonderful people, but there’s a limit to how long people will work for lower pay,” Shepro said. “They like the atmosphere. They love working for someone, but at $25,000 less, at some point you have a duty to your family.”

Still, Shepro said he was disappointed in the budget work this year, saying less time was spent on it than in the last 30 years of his connection with the county.

“We scaled back on the requests for new money, but we did not cut a single dime from the existing budget,” Shepro said. “And there are things that could have been cut.”

One example was hiring a public information officer while the funds were not available on a sustained basis, he said.

“We understood that it was going to be taken care of by eliminating some the other arguably redundant people in those positions, but that has not happened,” Shepro said.

Another major issue for him is to increase the county’s transparency – not only for the public but for matters that come before the county board.

“A good example is that was at the (May 10) meeting. We voted to approve three union contracts that were not attached to the resolutions and nobody but maybe two people really knew what was in them,” Shepro said. “There was supposed to be a copy on file with the county, but virtually nobody could find it. And if you could find it, it would not tell you what the new contract said. ... This is typical.”

To be fair, Shepro said the lack of transparency did not start with the current administration, but it should be addressed going forward.

Another task for Shepro, should he be elected to a second term, is updating and revising obsolete county ordinances “which refer to offices and positions that don’t exist and have not existed for 10 years.”

Another goal is the county’s ethics ordinance, which Shepro called “a glaring farce.”

“Two different state’s attorneys opined that it was unenforceable and violates state law, and yet we never seem able to come to grips to reforming it,” Shepro said. “It’s riddled with exceptions.”

If Kane County were to have serious consideration for a county administrator, it would require a referendum to change the system of voters electing a board chair to having the board choose a chair, he said.

The board rightly did not approve a pay increase for the new board chair to be elected in 2024, Shepro said. If the county decides to have a full-time administrator, it would not have to pay a full-time salary to a board chair no longer doing full-time work.

“That is going to have to be a decision for the new board,” Shepro said. “That is going to be a challenge. ... It would be a question of getting the money for an administrator. And once you have a total package and probably a deputy, you would be looking at well over $200,000.”