Name: Chris Lauzen
What office are you seeking: Re-election to Kane County Treasurer
What is your political party? The candidate did not answer
What is your current age? 73
Occupation and employer: Treasurer, Kane County
What offices, if any, have you previously held? Illinois State Senator (1993-2012), Kane County Board Chairman (2012-2020), Kane County Treasurer (2022-Present)
City: Lifelong Aurora/Kane County Resident
Campaign website: www.lauzen.com
Education: Duke University, Bachelor of Arts in English and Management Science, with honors, Harvard Business School, Masters of Business Administration, Certified Public Accountant (CPA) through testing by University of Illinois
Community involvement: Public Office Service
Marital status/Immediate family: Happily married to Sarah for 45 years. Four sons, married with families. Eight grandchildren.
Why are you running for this office?
I enjoy working for you as County Treasurer. Our team has demonstrated that we produce excellent results together.
The promises I made when I was elected Treasurer have been kept, and expectations exceeded. County interest income has been increased from roughly $2M budgeted (2023) to more than $20M annually. We sympathetically and effectively collect $1.6 Billion in annual property taxes, without incident.We saved taxpayers over $600,000 by replacing the county’s operating bank contract that hadn’t gone out for competitive bid for 22 years.
Every result we have delivered is backed by audited financial statements anyone can review. Monthly accounting of investments, income, and collections are completely transparent because they’re reconciled to the penny and are published monthly on County website under Finance Committee Reports.
I am running for a final term as Treasurer to complete this work and to manage an important transition. Four members of our staff, with a combined 113 years of experience, will be retiring in the coming years. Their replacements must be recruited, trained, and brought to full speed to ensure continuity and reliability in this office.
This is not an easy task. The consequences of failure would be crippling to county operations. I have theprovenexperience, systems, and discipline to ensure the Treasurer’s Office remains stable, professional, and highly qualified for an entire next generation.
What are your top three priorities for this position?
Maintain Record-Setting, National Award-Winning Returns on County Investments
I am committed to managing Kane County’s investments carefully and responsibly to maximize returns while protecting principal and adequate liquidity.
Through disciplined investment strategies, the Treasurer’s Office has already earned tens of millions more than projected in interest income, strengthening county finances without mandatory increases in the tax burden on families. Strong reserves that were built while I served as elected County Board Chairman helped keep county property taxes stable and protected the county during economic uncertainty.
Improve Services for Taxpayers
Sympathetically and effectively collect $1.6B from 199,000+ property taxpayers and distribute those funds to 270 local taxing districts.
Good financial management should make government work better for people.
As Treasurer, I support best practices that:
1: Return unclaimed county and state property to its rightful owners.
2:Maximize available taxpayer exemptions and deductions.
3:Reduce financial losses from vacant or underutilized properties.
4:Promote financial literacy and understanding across Kane County.
Serve as Spending Watchdog
Taxpayers deserve to know where their money goes and how it is managed.
As Treasurer, I work to ensure transparency, accountability, and clear reporting so residents, schools, and local government can trust that public funds are handled properly and distributed accurately.
Is the office adequately staffed and funded? Would you seek additional funding for the office if elected? How would you spend it and how would you justify that to taxpayers?
I am firmly “anti-tax-increases”.
1: Yes
2: No
3: It is important to understand that the Treasurer’s Office is a “net positive contributor” to the County budget not a “net expense”.In addition to millions and millions of interest income earned during the past three and a half years, we annually generate hundred of thousands in more revenue than expenses.
What, if any, deficiencies do you see in how the office is run, and how would you address them?
Four significant deficiencies have been corrected in the past three and a half years:
- Incredibly, the supermajority-controlled Kane County Board allowed the Treasurer’s Office to make less than one-half of one penny (.0043) per year in interest income on the quarter of a billion dollars that I had left in bank balances after two effective terms as elected Board Chairman.
Yes, interest rates were lower, however they didnothingabout a County staff member buying lower-payingtax-freemunicipal bonds when we don’t pay taxes as a government; at the ‘trough” of low interest rates, they locked us in to low rates by buying longer-term (3-4 year maturity) bonds, and allowed three brokerage firms to pluck us for commissions and executions like a Christmas goose under the “suitability” standards in state statutes.
Instead, I immediately initiated a Request for Proposals (RFP) to replace these brokers with expert specialists who manage investments under the much higher “fiduciary” standard and charge a flat fee of 1/10 of one penny per year.
The results have been a record-setting national award-winning, ten-fold improvements, totaling of $70,000,000 more interest income for County taxpayers.
- Within the first 18 months in office, I led the effort to “stress test” the quality of our operating bank relationship by issuing a nationwide RFP for competitive bids for these essential services. Eighteen (18) banks responded and, with the assistance of banking specialist RFPrep for a fee of less than $10,000, produced a result of $650,000 of more interest/less fees annually for County taxpayers from the replacement bank J.P. Morgan Chase.
I must add for the record that the Chronicle’s coverage of these efforts bordered on scandalously inaccurate and potentially self-serving with the headline “First American Bank Fires Kane County” (False) and with at least one of the Chronicle’s own banks being the replaced First American Bank. (possible bias).
- Although it’s not a “deficiency”, Treasury staff and I are introducing our “new and improved” tax bill that will be sent to more than 199,000 Kane County property taxpayers in April 2026. The bills will include for the first time:
· A pie chart showing to what agencies each taxpayers taxes go.
· Telephone numbers to the people who have decided increases/decreases.
· Postal tracking for outgoing bills and incoming payments.
· Transition to electronic transmissions (email paperlessoption)
- I have been amazed by the unintentional or intentionally inaccurate and/or incomplete financial information given to the Board and given to taxpayers by some of the ruling supermajority.
It has made necessary for me to correct the public record, far more often than I would have preferred, based on the accurate information contained in the County’s annual audit and comprehensive financial reports submitted to the State of Illinois, under the penalty of perjury.
Examples of material misstatements made to the public from Board members to the public without correction were “no property tax increase for FY ‘21 and FY ‘ 22” (False),“no new tax revenues to the County for ten years” (despite millions of more tax revenue from State of Illinois), significantly understated expense increases shown to the public when the preliminary budgets have been put on display, etc.
It is any organization’s Treasurer’s responsibility to speak up and at leasttryto correct inaccurate financial information given to constituents, taxpayers, shareholders, and/or clients.
Do you see ways that you can improve transparency in the treasurer’s office?
Regarding interest earned and returned on investment, I publish monthly on the Kane County website under the Finance Committee reports every penny of every investment instrument and every penny of every earnings on those investments…so it is not possible to be more transparent.
However, I am working on a “new and improved” property tax bill which will include a pie chart on the face of every taxpayer’s bill showing where their money goes and telephone numbers for those policymakers who decide how much to tax.
How long and in what way have you been affiliated with the political party in which you are running in the 2026 primary? If you’ve recently switched parties, explain the thinking behind that and your justification for running for office under a new political party.
I have run as a staunch fiscal conservative in the Republican Party since 1992. Kane County taxpayers are taxed too much.You can spend the money that you earn and save better than government can spend that money.
I have built a reputation for independent thought and respect for conscientious Democrat colleagues; there has been no change in political affiliation during my service.