County budget approved despite gun-violence-initiative debate

Lake County's $676.6 million 2026 budget was approved Tuesday despite a split vote, and a “conservative approach” will keep tax increases in the single digits for most residents, according to county Finance and Administration Committee Chairman Paul Frank.

Even though the tax levy increased by nearly $3.6 million from last year, the owner of a $330,000 home would see an increase of less than $9 on the Lake County portion of their property tax bill. While expenses were up 2.2% year-over-year, to about $14.5 million, revenues were also up 3.7%, or about $23.3 million.

While county staff and board members praised the budget and emphasized that the county's 2025 spending plan was recognized by the State Finance Officers Association, the 2026 budget was not approved unanimously.

In what was more of a show of protest than an attempt to freeze the budget, four board members — Michael Danforth, Kevin Hunter, Anne Main and Linda Pederson — voted against approval, expressing their opposition to a $650,000 clause that would turn the grant-funded Gun Violence Prevention Initiative into a county-funded program.

GVPI is a violence-intervention program created in 2022 by State's Attorney Eric Rinehart, the same year as the Fourth of July mass shooting in Highland Park. It aims to combat reports of rising gun violence in the county with a “trauma-informed, community-focused, and evidence-based approach,” according to the 2024 report.

In the 2026 budget summary released a few weeks ago, the program initially requested nearly $880,000, with plans to convert four grant-funded positions into county-funded jobs and add a full-time youth engagement coordinator position.

Frank said during Tuesday's meeting that the request was reduced to $650,000 and the full-time position was removed. The money will be a one-time transfer to the budget that will not impact the tax levy, and will fund the initiative for six months through the end of 2026 while the state attorney's office works to obtain state funding.

Frank acknowledged concerns raised in previous meetings that there was no conversation about whether the county should take on GVPI funding, saying “that's probably a discussion we'll have to have in the future” if state funding isn't received.

But Meng argued that holding such discussions later would set the process back.

“This is a complete departure from our policy: if there is no grant funding, positions disappear,” she said.

Meng and her fellow dissidents cited the example of a county health department, which she argued would cut grant-funded positions if such funds were lost.

Danforth and Hunter said they are not necessarily opposed to the merits of the initiative or the budget as a whole, and their objections relate to the process on a specific item.

Danforth said he couldn't comment on whether the program “would be justified or not” without metrics or data, and the lack of it would be inconsistent with including the program in the budget and allocating taxpayer dollars to it.

“I can make an argument for preventing gun violence: take those same dollars and put four or five more sheriff's deputies on the streets,” he said.

Frank contradicted Danforth's opinion, saying he “fully supports these efforts.” The state attorney's office has “evidence of their success,” he said.

“They have reduced and prevented gun violence in the communities where they have focused their resources,” Frank said.

Online, the initiative has a dashboard with statistics on gun deaths going back to 2020. Homicides rose to a relatively high level of 38 in 2022, according to the dashboard. The dashboard does not indicate whether this includes the mass shooting in Highland Park, which left seven people dead. The number of suicides rose in 2022 and 2023 to 40. Since then, it has slowly declined in both cases.

“The State's Attorney and his team at the Gun Violence Prevention Initiative have been leaders not only in this area, in the state, but nationally,” Frank said.

Frank praised the initiative for its work on the “human dimension” of gun violence, as well as the subsequent financial impact of gun violence on society, whether through the health care system, law enforcement or at the individual level.

Other budget items

The budget includes more than $100 million for infrastructure improvements in 2026, including roundabouts on Russell Road, drainage improvements in Carillion North and upgrades to Lake County Public Works' three wastewater treatment plants.

Several new requests for the program were approved, including replacing aging public safety radios to improve emergency response communications between local, state and federal agencies, a new building and code inspector, a social worker in the public defender's office, a grant coordinator in the finance department, and an upgrade to the county clerk's vote tabulation system.

“I want to congratulate my County Council colleagues, as well as the outstanding leadership of our County Administration and Finance Department, for crafting a budget that balances investments in our services and facilities with reasonable, minimal tax increases,” Frank said in a news release. “Lake County taxpayers can be proud of the transparent and deliberative process that produced this budget.”