The current structure of DuPage County government makes it very difficult to hold anyone accountable for what goes on. Most spending decisions are made by boards whose members are appointed by the County Board chair, with the other elected board members having little or no say. No other level of government works like this. Appointments to agencies at the state and federal levels are subject to confirmation by their respective Senates, and appropriate committees in the respective legislatures carry out oversight of those agencies.

With so much power in the hands of the County Chair, the predictable result is a government where cronyism runs rampant and we the people aren't served. We've already seen many examples of this. The DuPage Water Commission recently lost nineteen million dollars due to a supposed operational error. The Election Commission's director is under federal investigation for using his position to promote election technology in which he has a financial interest.

A monitoring and evaluative scorecard should be in place for operational aspects of County government that will produce quarterly reporting on performance to plan that would be set by the Board via an agreed-upon Strategic and Operational Plan for DuPage County. Effective for-profit and non-profit businesses use scorecards to run their operations and government should do the same. When there is an operational expense that is “off target” it is caught quickly and can be remedied without any surprises to taxpayers. The quarterly report card should be posted to the web for the public, to ensure the transparency and open government that secures good decision-making on the part of elected officials.

Of course, the County Board itself needs to be held accountable. It has more members than Cook County's Board of Commissioners, despite DuPage having less than one-fifth the population of Cook, and Cook not having a separate Forest Preserve board. While the Republicans on the County Board have been cutting services for the rest of us, they've been raising their own salaries, to the point where they receive (as of 2006) nearly $70,000 in pay and benefits for positions that take less of their time than most part-time jobs. The number of County Board members should be reduced, and the board should cut its own members' salary and benefits to a level commensurate with the amount of time and work they put in.