Lake County’s $676.6 million 2026 budget was approved Tuesday despite a split vote, and thanks to its “conservative approach,” tax increases will be in the single digits for most residents, according to county Financial and Administrative Committee Chair Paul Frank.
Despite the tax levy increasing by nearly $3.6 million from last year, the owner of a $330,000 home will see an increase of less than $9 on the Lake County portion of their tax property tax bill. While expenses are up 2.2% from last year, about $14.5 million, revenue is also up 3.7%, or about $23.3 million.
While staff and County Board members praised the budget — and highlighted how the county’s 2025 spending plan was recognized by the Government Finance Officers Association — the 2026 budget was not approved unanimously.
Four board members — Michael Danforth, Kevin Hunter, Ann Main and Linda Pederson — in what was more a show of protest than an attempt to stall the budget, voted against approval, voicing their opposition to a $650,000 item that would turn the grant-funded Gun Violence Prevention Initiative into a county-funded program.
The GVPI is a violence interruption program created in 2022 by State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart, the same year of the Highland Park July Fourth mass shooting. It aims to address a reported increase in gun violence in the county through a “trauma-informed, community-centered, and evidence-based approach,” according to a 2024 report.
In the 2026 budget summary released several weeks ago, the program was originally requesting nearly $880,000, with plans to turn 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 had been pared down to $650,000, and the full-time position removed. The money will be a one-time transfer within the budget — which wouldn’t impact the tax levy — and will fund the initiative for six months, to the end of 2026, while the State’s Attorney’s Office works on getting state funding.
Frank acknowledged concerns from previous meetings that there had not been a conversation on whether the county should take over funding the GVPI, saying “that’s probably a discussion we’ll have to have in the future” if state funding is not acquired.
But Maine argued that having such discussions later would be running the process backwards.
“It’s a complete departure from our policy that if grant funding is not there, the positions go away,” she said.
Maine and her fellow dissenters raised the example of the county’s Health Department, which she argued cuts positions funded by grants if such funds are lost.
Danforth and Hunter both said they were not necessarily speaking against the merits of the initiative or the budget as a whole, and their objections were to the process regarding the individual item.
Danforth said he couldn’t comment on “whether or not the program is warranted or justified” without metrics or data, and lacking those, is against adding the program to the budget and allocating it taxpayer dollars.
“I can make an argument for gun-violence prevention to take those same dollars and put four or five more deputy sheriffs on the streets,” he said.
Frank pushed back on Danforth’s sentiment, saying he was a “full believer of the effort.” The State’s Attorney’s Office has “the proof of their success,” he said.
“They have reduced and prevented gun violence in the communities where they have targeted their resources,” Frank said.
Online, the initiative has a data dashboard with statistics on gun deaths going back to 2020. According to the dashboard, homicides rose to a relatively high point of 38 in 2022. The dashboard does not indicate if that includes the Highland Park mass shooting that killed seven. Suicides rose in 2022 and 2023 to a high of 40. Both have since slowly declined.
“The state’s attorney and his team at the Gun Violence Prevention Initiative have not only been leaders in this area, in the state, but nationally,” Frank said.
Frank praised the initiative for its work on the “human aspect” of gun violence, as well as the downstream financial impacts gun violence has on the community, whether through the healthcare system, law enforcement, or at the individual level.
Other budget items
The budget includes more than $100 million for infrastructure improvements in 2026, including Russell Road roundabouts, drainage improvements in the Carillion North Subdivision and upgrades to three Lake County Public Works wastewater treatment plants.
Several new program requests were approved, including the replacement of outdated public safety radios — meant 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 of the County Clerk’s voter tabulation system.
“I want to congratulate my County Board colleagues, along with the outstanding leadership of our county administration and finance department, for producing a budget that balances investments in our services and facilities with a reasonable, minimal tax increase,” Frank said in a news release. “Lake County taxpayers can take pride in the transparent, deliberative process that shaped this budget.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/20/lake-county-2026-budget/
