Will County Board Adopts First Strategic Plan Built on a 2.3 Trust Rating

Will County Board | September 17, 2026

Article Summary: The Will County Board on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026, adopted its first formal strategic plan without debate, approving a 55-page report prepared by LEAP HR Consulting in which members rated their own trust climate at 2.3 out of 5, said the board has no onboarding program at all, and identified senior services, water and housing as its three policy priorities.

Will County Board Strategic Plan Key Points:

• Resolution 26-298 / 26-5443 accepts a strategic plan prepared by LEAP HR Consulting, through CEO and founder Laurie Swilley, and passed on the Executive Committee consent agenda by voice vote with no member asking to remove it.
• The engagement ran in four phases with stated costs: Phase 1 initial assessment, May 2026, $1,750; Phase 2 stakeholder engagement, June 2026, $3,750; Phase 3 offsite workshop, July 2026, $3,750; Phase 4 plan development, August 2026, $2,750.
• Members rated the board’s trust climate an average of 2.3 on a 1-to-5 scale, with no respondent scoring it above 3. Twenty-one of 22 members participated in anonymous interviews, a 95% rate, and the workshop generated 116 SWOT observations.
• The plan sequences governance work first — onboarding, a code of conduct, diagnostics on trust and on land use permitting — before the three policy priorities, and warns: “The greatest threat to this plan is not disagreement. It is dilution.”

WILL COUNTY — The Will County Board on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026, approved a strategic plan that describes the body as lacking “the basic infrastructure of an effective legislative body,” adopting it on the Executive Committee’s consent agenda without a single question from the floor.

Speaker Joe VanDuyne presented four Executive Committee consent items and asked whether any member wished to remove any of them. Hearing none, the board passed all four by voice vote; Member Denise Winfrey seconded the package. Resolution 26-298 / 26-5443 was the first on the list.

The resolution states the board identified the need for a strategic plan in 2025 and entered into an agreement with LEAP HR Consulting, through CEO and founder Laurie Swilley, to develop one incorporating input from board members and stakeholders. It describes a four-phase study including an online survey, individual interviews, a review of past county board meetings and a one-day workshop producing a SWOT analysis and strategic priorities, and characterizes the result as “a detailed 55-page report.”

Appendix C sets out the engagement in four phases with a stated cost for each: Phase 1, initial assessment, May 2026, $1,750; Phase 2, stakeholder engagement, June 2026, $3,750; Phase 3, offsite workshop, July 2026, $3,750; and Phase 4, plan development, August 2026, $2,750, with final delivery of “a living strategic plan report by August 31, 2026.” Phase 1 was an online survey of all 22 board members. Phase 2 was one-on-one interviews with all 22 members plus eight to 10 key stakeholders. Phase 3 was a single full-day offsite — team building in the morning, SWOT analysis and strategic priorities in the afternoon. Presentation slides name Swilley as presenter, with Swilley, Jim Rink and Vince Clark listed as facilitators.

The Board’s Own Assessment

The report’s central finding is a number. “Members rated the trust climate at an average of 2.3 out of 5, with no respondent scoring it above 3,” the executive summary states, describing the figure as the board’s own assessment of the environment it operates in, both internally and in its relationship with the public.

The report is careful about what that number does not establish. Because the figure blends internal trust among members with public trust, it “cannot by itself tell the Board which of the two is driving the low score,” and because residents were not surveyed, the public component “rests entirely on members’ perception of how residents feel.” The plan recommends the board diagnose the score before setting any improvement target.

The report also records what it calls the strongest consensus in the entire process: that no formal onboarding exists and that new members are not prepared for the role. Members asked for knowledge of county departments and staff, training on Robert’s Rules of Order, guidance on how a legislative body works and mentorship from experienced members. The plan calls this its most immediately actionable item, noting it “requires no diagnosis, no external cooperation, and no resolution of any political disagreement.”

Participation figures are reported directly: 21 of the 22 members participated in interviews, a 95% rate; all interviews were conducted by a single interviewer; interviews were anonymous; and counts in the report are frequencies of mention rather than counts of members.

Structure Treated as a Permanent Condition

A substantial portion of the report addresses Will County’s county executive form of government, adopted by referendum in 1988, under which an independently elected county executive manages day-to-day operations separately from the board and holds veto authority, with the board able to override by a three-fifths vote.

The report states the form is used by only two Illinois counties, Will and Champaign, the latter since 2016, and notes that Cook County is often assumed to share the structure but does not. It argues that in Cook and Champaign, single-party dominance across both branches masks the friction built into a separation of powers, while “Will County has no such cushion,” describing the board as closely divided with the executive serving in a tie-breaking role.

Members named the working relationship with the executive office as a weakness and executive overreach as a threat. The report discloses that among recorded opportunities, “one member proposed a resolution that could lead to a referendum to abolish the county executive structure,” and states plainly that it is not carrying that item into the strategy, calling a structural change of that magnitude “a decision for the voters of Will County, not a work stream in a Board strategic plan.”

Two items in the report’s parking lot are recorded as raised but unresolved: whether checks and balances between the board and the county executive are adequate, framed by members as a matter of control versus power; and the question of legal counsel for the board versus the executive, specifically “whether the legislative branch has access to independent legal advice on questions of its own authority.” The report takes no position on either.

The First Twelve Months

The plan sequences its work across three horizons on what it calls “a simple principle: build the capacity first, then use it.”

Nine items are assigned to the first 12 months, described as “deliberately unglamorous and almost entirely within the Board’s own control.” They are: building and delivering the onboarding program; adopting and applying a code of conduct; completing a trust diagnosis; completing a land use and permitting diagnosis; reviewing and reaffirming the mission, vision and values; adopting a position-setting process; launching a senior survey and beginning a service catalog; standing up a Water Action Advisory Committee; and determining the county’s authority over five identified housing barriers.

The document is candid about the risk of the plan going nowhere. “The greatest threat to this plan is not disagreement. It is dilution,” it reads. “A closely divided Board with real differences of interest can easily let the near-term work slip, particularly the diagnostic work, which produces no visible win.”

Years one through three call for a trust improvement target grounded in the diagnosis, permitting improvements targeting “the actual constraint rather than the perceived one,” a senior services heat map and public awareness campaign, advancing a water agenda including aquifer recharge and engagement with high-volume industrial users, and applying the position-setting process “to energy, data centers, and solar, so the Board leads on these rather than reacting.” The five-year test, the plan says, is whether it survives an election. All numerical targets are left blank for the board to set, on the stated grounds that assigning them “would substitute our judgment for the Board’s.”

Onboarding Written to Be Handed to a New Member

The longest section of the plan is a board onboarding and offboarding framework, included “because the Board asked for it more clearly and more consistently than for anything else in this process, and because no such materials exist today.”

“Every electoral cycle currently resets a portion of the Board’s institutional knowledge to zero,” it says.

Part One explains the board as a legislative body under the county executive form of government, stressing that an individual member “acting alone, has no executive authority” and cannot direct a department, order a permit issued or instruct staff. It notes Will County is not a home-rule unit and possesses only powers granted by the state — a distinction, the plan says, that “members repeatedly said the Board struggles with.”

Part Two is a Robert’s Rules of Order primer, requested “specifically and repeatedly,” covering the sequence of a motion, the motions members actually use, and the rules that protect members in the minority, including that ending debate requires two-thirds. Its advice: “Learn the motion to amend first.”

The onboarding schedule calls for a welcome packet before the first meeting, live Robert’s Rules training and a budget process briefing in the first 30 days, a mentor assigned from a different caucus wherever possible, and a district briefing in the first 90 days. The offboarding half calls for exit interviews, knowledge transfer on district issues and relationships with municipal and township officials, and committee handover.

The Board’s Own Words, Reproduced

Appendix A reproduces the complete SWOT list generated at the workshop “exactly as recorded,” including, the document notes, “items that contradict one another and items that were not carried forward into the strategy.” The workshop generated 116 observations — 31 strengths, 28 weaknesses, 30 opportunities and 27 threats.

Members starred six as highest priority: diversity of Will County population and land, and the transportation network, among strengths; water and energy among opportunities; and aging population and “resident retention and housing” among threats. No weakness carried a star.

Among the raw entries are weaknesses including “NOT home rule,” “ineffective (slow) governance,” “county budget process, not agreeing on the same needs,” and “too many board members, we do not need 22, increase wage for 11.” Opportunities include a land bank, data center jobs, small modular nuclear reactors and “initiate a referendum to undo executive structure.” Threats include “overreach by Executive,” “overreach from State,” “data centers and solar farms,” “increased traffic” and “private equity overtaking public good.”

Appendix B sets out three priority initiatives as the board recorded them. The senior services initiative is a five-step approach beginning with a survey of the county’s 65-and-over population, cataloging services across government and 501(c)(3) providers, a public awareness campaign, and dividing the county into quadrants staffed by dedicated social workers, measured by a five-year increase in participation. The water initiative lists community outreach for equitable conservation, shallow aquifer recharge, creation of the Water Action Advisory Committee, and limiting data center water use, with the detail noting the item “includes car washes, golf courses, and other industries.” On housing, the board identified five barriers rather than actions — assessments, lending policies, the cost of housing units, rising property taxes and redevelopment that places “no value on existing homes” — which the report calls “an honest reflection” of a board that has diagnosed the problem without agreeing on a response.

The report also names land use and permitting as the most-cited operational frustration, described as slow, costly and difficult to navigate, while cautioning that most of what members reported is secondhand and that the input “does not establish where in the process the problem occurs.”

Reaction

The plan drew no comment during the vote, but Democratic Leader Sherry Williams returned to it during leadership remarks.

“My favorite topic, and everybody else’s — we have a strategic plan. I am so happy for that, guys. Thank you so much,” Williams said. “I do have some ideas about how we get started. So we start with the easy stuff. I think that the onboarding is one of the things that we probably need to look at, especially since the election is so close here, too.” She invited colleagues to send ideas and offers of help.

The Executive Committee plans to meet Oct. 8, 2026.