A review of Will County’s fiscal policies on Tuesday highlighted significant gaps in how the county tracks its physical assets, from office furniture to squad cars, prompting calls from the Ad-Hoc Ordinance Review Committee to modernize the process.

During the review of Chapter 40, which covers fiscal affairs, committee members expressed concern that the county’s current inventory system is inadequate and underutilized. The discussion revealed that while the county’s new financial software, D365, has robust asset-tracking capabilities, they are not being fully implemented across all departments.

“This all goes back to having an asset management, asset tracking type system,” said Republican Leader Jim Richmond, who is not a member of the committee but attended the meeting. “This is something that really needs to be addressed.”

The conversation centered on the lack of a centralized, comprehensive inventory. According to the ordinance, assets valued below $5,000 are considered “minor assets” and are not always tracked centrally. The Sheriff’s Department also uses its own separate system for tracking its vehicle fleet.

Committee members argued that a more detailed and unified system would improve fiscal planning and prevent surprise budget requests.

“If we had access to this type of information… when you’re looking at it and you’re budgeting, you can say, ‘Well listen, we’re going to have to buy three new printers… because we can see these are from whatever year,'” said Chair Jackie Triner. “We don’t do that if we don’t know.”

Board Member Judy Ogalla noted the D365 system was purchased with the promise of providing these capabilities. “The old software system could not do this, but I believe the new one has the capability,” she said.

Phil Mock of the State’s Attorney’s Office explained that the decentralized nature of county government, where each elected official controls their own office, led to the breakdown of a former centralized inventory system.

The committee decided to move forward with the existing ordinance language for now but tasked county staff with investigating the full capabilities of the D365 system and exploring how to expand its use. The goal is to establish a more consistent policy for tracking assets, potentially at a lower dollar threshold, that all county departments would be encouraged to adopt.