'It's Time DuPage County Started Following The Law': County Clerk To Board

DUPAGE COUNTY — “The Attorney General’s Office has been crystal-clear for decades on this issue, and it’s time DuPage County started following the law," DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek said in a statement as she pressed the county board for election funding.

The job of the County Board is to fund the Clerk’s office, not to micromanage its operations,” Kaczamerek's news release said. “My office is fully transparent with the details of everything we spend money on, and I welcome the public’s scrutiny and feedback regarding our projected 2026 expenditures.”

According to Kaczmarek, legal guidance from Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul stated that “a county board’s budgetary authority for county officers operating under internal control provisions is limited solely to the appropriation of aggregate or lump-sum dollar amounts for the items delineated in their internal control statutes—namely, equipment, materials, and services.”

Kaczmarek is requesting $1,201,882 to cover materials, $11,196, 659 to cover services and $155,700 to cover equipment for elections in fiscal year 2026. The election funds are being sought in "lump-sum appropriations," which she asserts is "consistent with the opinion provided by the Attorney General’s Office."

After Kaczmarek received the aforementioned "legal guidance" from Raoul in 2023, she says DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin "took the contradictory position that the County Board has the authority to make appropriations to the County Clerk’s Office for items other than those delineated in the Clerk’s internal control statutes."

The clerk filed a lawsuit in late 2024 naming County Board Chair Deb Conroy, among others. The suit states that the county board challenged invoices, including some involving "technical issues."

In part, the suit seeks a formal declaration stating that “the County Board only has the authority to appropriate lump sums to the Clerk for equipment, materials, and services in accordance with Ill. Atty. Gen. Inf. Op. No. I-23-004 and that the County Board may not limit the Clerk’s spending authority beyond those lump sum appropriations."

Kaczmarek's newsletter states, “The Attorney General’s Office has been crystal-clear for decades on this issue, and it’s time DuPage County started following the law. The job of the County Board is to fund the Clerk’s office, not to micromanage its operations."

“My office is fully transparent with the details of everything we spend money on," Kaczmarek said, "and I welcome the public’s scrutiny and feedback regarding our projected 2026 expenditures.”

She concluded, "So much energy and taxpayer money has been wasted fighting the County Board’s efforts to illegally interfere with my office’s internal operations. As we head into a high-stakes national election year in 2026, I plead with the County Board to simply follow the law and let me do my job."