Three hope to succeed Keck as Kane auditor

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Updated: March 14, 2012 8:00AM

With the retirement of current Kane County auditor Bill Keck, 2012 will bring a new face in the office.

The office itself is small, with only three employees, and its spending does not have a large overall impact on the Kane budget.

But all three candidates in the March 20 Republican primary election — Terry Hunt of Big Rock, Laura Wallett of South Elgin and Karl Regnier of North Aurora — are hoping that the office will play a larger role in monitoring county spending.

“It is one of the smaller offices in the county,” Regnier said. “You have to get in there to learn what is going on, and how things are going on.”

Wallett noted that the county is in a transitional phase. There will be a new chairman, and several new board members. She said she would like to take this opportunity to modernize the work.

“I would like to get a better system of inventory tracking, and buying in bulk,” she said.

Buying at the government level can work the same way as for private citizens. When all the departments buy their supplies at the same time, there can be discounts to take advantage of, she said.

Hunt also said that the office would gain importance with several new faces expected on the County Board after the elections.

“I think the county auditor is going to be an even more active role,” she said.

The financial supervisory role of the auditor is important, Regnier said. He said Keck did a good job, and he would want to get in office and see where everything stands regarding finances before making too many recommendations.

“There could be something right now that you think is going great, and it might not be,” he said.

All of the candidates also want to do more to increase the level of transparency within the county finances.

“I want to post more things so that the average taxpayer is informed,” Regnier said.

Wallett said that she wanted to see the system modernized to the point that the public can use the county website to run reports for information on various county vendors.

Hunt said that he would like to have the county finances published online so that the public has easier access to that information. He also wants to see an improvement in technology that will help the office to better be able to do its job.