Knox County Board approves a series of state mandated ordinances

Much to the chagrin of some of its members, the Knox County Board approved a series of ordinance changes that were forced on them by the State of Illinois.

To start, the county took rare action at it’s June meeting in reconsidering a pair of action items that were shot down in a tie vote last month. The two motions were in regard to state-mandated changes to the county’s commercial wind and solar energy ordinances.

Board Chair Jared Hawkinson, said he voted ‘no’ last month solely because he rejected the state’s dictation of local governments’ siting of such items.

“By not having these ordinances in place, the petitioners would have to file with the State of Illinois. They would not go through us therefore we [would] have no say in anything that they do. The fees that would go with any of those items would go straight to the state.”

Regarding permitting fees, Hawkinson said the county would miss out on an excess of $40,000 in those fees that would go directly to the state.

He adds that there is some local control for the county board with the new ordinance. The county can limit where these energy projects are located and may require local permits for its building.

Another action item that was forced on the county was in regard to the salary of elected positions in the county.

The Knox County Board last week approved mandatory pay raises for the State’s Attorney, Public Defender, and Sheriff. The board voted 14-1 to approve the pay raises, with District Two’s Greg “Chops” Bacon being the lone dissenter.

These cost of living pay raises are state-mandated, according to Board Chair Hawkinson.

“It was requested that myself and [Knox County Treasurer Robin Davis] research what would happen if we did not approve those cost of living increases. Robin reached out to the Department of Revenue. Basically, the first line [of the response] is ‘The COLA increases are mandatory by statute.'”

Bacon said prior to the vote that this was something the county “had” to do but didn’t like the state forcing it on counties.

The new salary for the State’s Attorney is $197,436.44 dollars. For the Public Defender, it is $177,692.80 dollars. And for the Sheriff, it’s $157,949.15 dollars.

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