The Knox County Health Department is owed about $131,000 by the state of Illinois, due to 10 months of a budget impasse, but now the department is taking action.
The Knox County Board of Health voted last night to join a consortium of 60 other Illinois health departments and public service agencies to sue the state for lack of payment.
The Illinois Collaboration on Youth is spearheading the effort and is requiring all participants to pay $1,000 for attorneys, court costs and a media relations specialist.
Knox County Health Department Administrator Michele Gabriele says “what they plan on doing is putting through an immediate injunction so that they immediately call for them to pay us and then they go to sue.”
Knox has a precedent of successfully recovering delinquent state payments after lawsuits.
State’s Attorney John Pepmeyer filed a lawsuit in December which spurred the state reimbursing $141,000 for their share of the State’s Attorney’s, Supervisor of Assessment’s and Public Defender’s salaries.
