Free lunch? Not on taxpayers' dime, please

Whether we live in Arlington Heights, Algonquin or Antioch, it seems we hear of more layoffs, job losses, pay cuts and closures almost every day. From Schaumburg to Round Lake or Wheaton, we're all watching our dollars. Plenty of us are packing a lunch or even skipping it to stretch every penny.

Times like these, frankly, made it a bit jarring to hear that Kane County is still planning a $20,000 employee recognition lunch for June even as the county looks at pay cuts, unpaid holidays, early retirements and layoffs in a grim budget cycle. Saying the expense was already accounted for in her budget, Human Resources Director Sheila McCraven told a Kane County Board committee that she felt the luncheon to honor the county's 1,340 employees should remain. She'd already trimmed her budget the required 5.5 percent as part of countywide efforts to trim $3.8 million from the budget and felt the lunch was a good morale boost. The committee chose to leave it be.

A day after Daily Herald reporter Jim Fuller's first story and amid plenty of outcry - including from Kane County Treasurer David Rickert, whose entire staff declined to attend - Kane County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay said she'd push to cancel the lunch and will soon ask the full board to vote on the issue.

"I don't think, given the current economic situation, that the board will have a problem with not having the luncheon this year," McConnaughay said, predicting the likely vote.

Clearly, we hope they'll nix this unnecessary $20,000 expense. It's not that the county's employees don't deserve recognition. We know they work hard. And McCraven was doing her job to advocate for those employees. But given the current economic situation, every public body needs to justify every expenditure. And staffers don't need a free lunch. They need jobs.

"While this is a great way to recognize our employees and to boost employee morale, my staff and I feel that it would be an activity we are willing to forgo in order to help save jobs and taxpayer money," Rickert wrote in a memo declining the luncheon.

Saving jobs and taxpayer money should definitely top a free lunch any day, but particularly these days. We'd hope this situation will, in fact, prompt every government entity to take a second look at any extras tucked in their budgets, particularly any extras that aren't needed to provide the absolutely required or needed services for those taxpayers.

Many governments and private businesses are already taking those steps, eliminating all but essential services and staff, just as many taxpayers are eliminating all but necessities in those household budgets.

Such cuts are difficult and, without question, lead to a drop in morale in most places. We understand the wish to give a boost to those staffers who are now working harder to do more.

But even if by incredible chance there is extra cash left over in any of those budgets, we'd hope that money would go where it's supposed to go - to taxpayers - not to pick up the lunch tab.