A Cook County sheriff`s police officer who said he spends 25 percent of his time answering false burglar alarms suggested Thursday that the Cook County Board levy a tax or user charge on businesses and homeowners who trigger false alarms.
Such a measure would raise revenue for the county and improve alarm systems already in use, said Art Dutkovic, acting president of the north chapter of the Combined Counties Police Association, in testimony at a county board budget hearing. Dutkovic did not suggest an amount for the tax or service charge.
At one business in Elk Grove township, Dutkovic said, the security alarm sounded 91 times last year and the company has made no effort to repair it.
Sheriff Richard Elrod called the idea ”wonderful. A lot of
municipalities have such a tax, and false alarms are a headache to most law enforcement agencies,” he said. Finance Committee Chairman John Stroger directed his staff to research the idea.
Dutkovic testified along with representatives of several unions, who asked the board for raises as high as 10 percent in the 1986 budget.
The 1986 budget proposal of $1.018 billion contains no provisions for pay raises for any of the county`s 23,232 employees.
County Comptroller Thomas Beck issued a written rebuttal to an assertion Wednesday by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that the county has budgeted $42 million in excess surpluses and contingency funds that could be used for pay raises.
Beck said the union failed to take into account utility costs, principal and interest payments on bonds and the fact that some taxes yield less during the course of the year than originally estimated.
Meanwhile, Democratic board candidate Charles Bernardini called on the board to freeze $1.5 million in the county budget that is earmarked for new workers in three offices that Bernardini said are ”rife with unnecessary patronage payrollers.”
The funds would provide 56 jobs in the Cook County circuit court clerk`s office, 16 for the sheriff, and 28 for the chief judge of the circuit court.
”Everytime we pick up the paper, it seems that a deputy sheriff is being arrested for something,” said Bernardini, a former Cook County assistant state`s attorney, who is running as an independent for a Chicago seat on the board.
”If they need new deputy sheriffs, it`s probably because too many of them are on disciplinary leave because of criminal charges against them.”
Bernardini said at a City Hall press conference that the county board should not authorize new funding for those offices until officials implement reforms suggested by the court watching project.
The recently released study by a private group proposed such measures as a requirement that judges and other court personnel perform a full day`s work.
