Will County to vote on auditor, recorder, circuit court clerk
Will County voters have their choice of Republican and Democrat candidates for auditor, circuit court clerk and recorder of deeds in this fall’s election.
Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow is seeking election to a seventh term, but is unopposed after Republican candidate RickMunoz was removed from the ballot following a petition challenge.
Auditor
Incumbent Kevin “Duffy” Blackburn, a Joliet Democrat, is seeking his fourth term. He is a certified public accountant and holds certifications as a fraud examiner and information systems auditor. He is being challenged by James Buiter, a Crete Republican and also a certified public accountant.
The auditor’s office is responsible for auditing and making sure internal controls on spending are followed for all county offices.
During Blackburn’s tenure, the office has earned national and local recognition for transparency and financial reporting and accountability. He has posted the county’s checkbook, all collective bargaining unit agreements, contracts with vendors and employee salaries online. The office also has been recognized as the first governmental body to produce a financial statement using a computer language readable by artificial intelligence.
With theCOVID-19 pandemic seeing more people working fromhome, Blackburn said his office isworking to ensure county systems are secure for those employees working remotely.
Buiter, 55, has been a licensed CPA since 1988 with the bulk of his experience in the private sector. He worked as a senior financial analyst for Citibank and Prudential Securities before starting his own tax and financial advisement firm in 2009.
He has said he would work to find efficiencies in audit reviews to help save taxpayer money.
“There’s a lot of corruption in the county and the state of Illinois,” he said.
Buiter questioned how some county officials were notmadeaware of overages on salaries until nearly the end of the budget year and why the auditor does not put out a report each month showing where the budget stands.
Blackburn said that while county offices, such as the sheriff, have control over their own budgets, he began preparing electronic budget reports in 2012 to provide a historical view of salaries and which departments exceed salary budgets.
Circuit court clerk
Incumbent Andrea Lynn Chasteen, a Frankfort Democrat, is seeking her second term and is challenged by Anthony Granata, a Republican from Frankfort.
Chasteen, 45, hasworked for the office since 1995, and was director of operations before seeking election in 2016 when her predecessor, Pam McGuire, decided not to seek reelection.
“I really love what I do,” Chasteen said. “I am here every day and I fully enjoy it … and I would just like to
have the opportunity to do it for another four years.”
The clerk’s office is charged with maintain court records for civil and criminal proceedings.
Chasteen said she wants to continue working toward paperless courtrooms in the new courthouse and a customer queuing system that will help make stops at the circuit clerk’s office easier.
She cites an online pleading system for traffic tickets and a “live chat” feature on the clerk’s website among her accomplishments. She hopes to expand the live chat feature to include a system that allows individuals to signupfor notifications and reminders of court dates.
Staffing will be a key issue as the county’s new
courthouse opens with two additional courtrooms. Chasteen has requested more employees to staff the two courtrooms.
Granata, a 29-year-old independent political consultant, said he would wait to get into the courthouse before determining the need for more employees.
“I wouldn’t want to speak before I was able to assess the situation,” he said.
Granata said he is running because he felt it was time for a change in leadership.
“I think people are yearning for change and to get back to normal,” he said. “I don’t think you can do that by selecting someone who has been there for 25 years.”
He said he believe there are problems with technology in the office and that several attorneys have shared stories about having difficulty logging into the website to file documents. He also said some employees have told him there is a
lack of communication, and that some employees were not aware of the new program for traffic tickets until it was announced in a news release.
Recorder of deeds
Incumbent Karen Stukel, 54, a Channahon Democrat, and Gretchen Fritz,
47, a county board member and Plainfield Republican, are vying for recorder of deeds. Stukel is seeking her fourth term.
The office oversees the recording of property records and military discharge papers. On average, the office records about 500 documents a day, Stukel said.
Stukel said she would continue working on digitizing records dating back to 1965. She said she would promote the office’s fraud alert system, to alert owners whenever something is recorded against their property. She put the system in place in 2010 after a case involving fraud, but said she would like to get more residents signed up for the program.
Fritz has raised questions about the software used by the department and questions why it has taken this long to digitize property records.
Stukel said her office first had to fix errors on records recorded before she took office in 2008, and that she recently hired a company to begin digitizing older records.
Fritz also said Stukel awarded a no-bid contract for software programs. Stukel, however, said she brought in four companies to do demonstrations and show how the systems work before settling on a particular program. She said the program the department previously used prior was problematic and got the worst rating among the four companies reviewed by her staff.
Through the company she is using, property records are backed up in two different states so that if the system should ever go down in Will County, records can still be accessed, she said. The company also implemented an honors reward programs featuring 150 businesses offering discounts to veterans.
Fritz said if she were elected she would go to bid on contracts and would use the county board’s ad hoc technology committee and use stakeholders, including township assessors, to review programs.