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Logan County Board
December Finance Meeting
[December 10, 2025]
On Tuesday, December 9th, the
Finance Committee of the larger Logan County Board held their
monthly meeting in the Blue Room of the Logan County Safety Complex
at 911 Pekin Street starting at just after 6:30 p.m. Four of the
five committee members were present including Chairman Kathy
Schmidt, Vice Chairman Joseph Kuhlman, Keenan Leesman, and Lance
Conahan. Dale Nelson was not present. Also in attendance was Atlanta
Public Museum Director Amy Wertheim, Logan County Administrative
Assistant Madelyn Hinton, and Josh Pharis of the Sheriff’s Office.
After attendance was taken and guests were introduced, the committee
approved their previous month’s minutes. With no old business on the
agenda, Schmidt moved on to the new business, of which there were
three items. The first item was a request by Wertheim in the amount
of $7,500 for the Atlanta Public Museum from the Community Benefit
Fund (CBF). Wertheim spoke to the committee, stating that they are
trying to create a new space that can be rented out by the
community.
According to Wertheim, one issue Atlanta currently has is the lack
of spaces that are able to be rented out for things such as
children’s birthday parties. There are a few locations, but any
events that could be messier are generally not allowed. The space
they are working on would be able to be rented for most anything and
would be a source of income for the museum. She said the entirety of
the project is roughly $27,000, so her request is not for full
funding, but rather partial.
Conahan then stated that Atlanta gets hotel/motel tax money for
tourism. He wanted to know if the city contributed anything to the
project. Wertheim gave an overview of the situation regarding
tourism in Atlanta. She stated that the current mayor, Tom Young,
“got into it” with Tourism Director Scott McCoy, and “fired” him.
According to Wertheim, since then, Young has not wanted to give
money to tourism, rather electing to spend the money on “fireworks.”
Conahan then asked about some
financial issues regarding the library years prior. Wertheim
explained a bit on this situation and stated that the individual who
got them into the situation is no longer associated with the library
or museum in any way.
Leesman then stated that not all of the items that Wertheim was
requesting were eligible for funding due to the stipulations put in
place for the CBF. He stated that facility repair items would not be
able to be funded, specifically citing supplies for painting.
Schmidt stated that they would be able to fund $4,900 of the
request, and a motion was made to move the request on to Wednesday’s
Workshop meeting.
The second item on the agenda was another CBF request, this time
from the new Monarch Youth Center in Lincoln. Schmidt stated that
she spoke with someone who works there and they were requesting
$2,000 from the CBF for items such as a ping-pong table, as well as
other items on a list that was provided to the committee members.
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Conahan was the first to speak on the matter, sharing that he
would not be in support of the request and found it “offensive”
in a couple of ways. First, Conahan stated that, to his
knowledge, the county board was not invited to the opening of
the center, which was by invitation only. He stated that Lincoln
city officials were invited, as was Senator Sally Turner. The
other reason is that the facility is owned and operated by the
state of Illinois. He stated that they should be able to find
$2,000 in their budget for the items requested.
The other three board members generally shared Conahan’s
sentiment to varying degrees. Leesman stated that the scope of
impact from the donation was not apparent from the application
alone. He also stated that he believes anyone requesting more
than $500 for something should be coming before the committee to
explain their request and answer any questions that arise from
the application.
Kuhlman asked about the facility being state owned, and Pharis
informed him that it is, specifically with the Illinois
Department of Corrections. The general sentiment was no, but
Conahan suggested moving the request to old business for
January’s committee meeting and asking the Monarch
representative to come speak on the request. He stated that it
is possible he missed an invitation, and that the person could
be given the opportunity to explain their need for the donation.
The final item on the agenda regarded an annual payment that the
county received from Top Hat Wind Farm. The payment was in the
amount of $100,000 and was paid to the Sheriff’s office. This is
something Top Hat agreed to in their contract with the county
when they started building their wind farm. The entire amount
was put toward the Logan County Correctional Center expansion.
Conahan suggested taking some of that to help refill the CBF. He
said that CBF funds were used previously in the amount of about
$30,000 to help fix some cell doors that the Sheriff needed
fixed in the facility. He also stated that Cresco, who according
to several board members over the past few months, are supposed
to be paying into the CBF, is not making any payments at all.
The other committee members were generally not very favorable to
this idea, and it was dropped.
This was followed by a motion to adjourn, bringing the meeting
to a close.
[Matt Boutcher]
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