PEORIA, Ill. – The battle between the Peoria County Board and Peoria County Auditor Jessica Thomas continues.
County Board members Thursday night voted 15-2 in favor of placing another question on the November election ballot asking if the county’s “internal” auditor should be eliminated, given that there’s also an “external” auditor.
“You voted unanimously in November of 2017 to put this referendum on the ballot. The referendum was defeated in March of 2018 — one of the highest voter turnouts in the primary election in recent history,” said Thomas.
So Thomas says she doesn’t understand why the board would ignore the will of the people and try again.
Several county board members said despite allegations, voters want the chance to decide again, and say it’s not unprecedented to ask voters multiple times to answer essentially the same question.
Some county board members are saying despite the ongoing fireworks, the November referendum question just approved is nothing personal.
“We have a lot of controls in place today that were not possible 20, 30 years ago for the public,” said County Board member Steven Rieker (R-Dist. 15). “We have the transparency portal. Any citizen can go out any day and look at what bills we paid, who we paid to.”
CLICK HERE to see the Transparency Portal.
The referendum question, as approved by the County Board Thursday, is below.
(From Peoria County Board Documents)
