Letter: McHenry Township General Assistance Program is a tax rip-off

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To the Editor:

There is insanity and taxpayer waste involved with the McHenry Township General Assistance Program. General Assistance, one of the three state-mandated duties of townships, is aid to the poor where the township supervisor gets rich and a very small amount of aid reaches the poor. Of the 20 township government states, Illinois is the only state that still has General Assistance.

McHenry Township’s General Assistance is the responsibility of Supervisor Craig Adams and, as it is with all township supervisors, is his only mandated duty. During fiscal 2020-21, Adams received about $100,000 in salary, health insurance, retirement and other benefits.

For the 12 months of April through March, fiscal 2020-21, a total of $14,294.74 was dispersed to 48 clients. This relates to an average of four people a month who received aid. The average amount of money that was dispersed each month was $1,191.12.

The administration cost of General Assistance for personal services of salary, health insurance, retirement and other benefits, plus office expenses comes at a taxpayer cost of more than $93,000 to disperse the $14,294.74 in aid. This equates to about $7 of administration cost for each $1 of aid distributed, not a good value for taxpayers.

McHenry Township has a reserve of $459,000 in its fund balance for General Assistance. This means that McHenry Township has enough taxpayer money stashed away to continue for more than 32 years with General Assistance without the addition of one more dollar. Dear taxpayer, how many years of reserves do you have?

The Township General Assistance Program is a fraudulent program where supervisors get rich and money is stored in hidden fund balances. If you support townships, this is what you are supporting. A tax rip-off.

Bob Anderson

McHenry Township trustee, Wonder Lake