Longtime Champaign co-administrator now alone at top

URBANA – When Deb Busey graduated from the University of Illinois 34 years ago with a degree in literature, becoming the administrator of a county government with more than 900 employees and a budget of $120 million was an improbable career goal.

In fact, she said, she was considering going to law school when she applied for a job with the Champaign County state's attorney's office.

Over the years, she's become proficient at budgeting, finance and human-resources issues, and now she alone will be overseeing a county where one of her first tasks is to ask nearly every department to cut its budget for next year by 6 percent.

Also on this date

• Catholic Worker House's meal reduction angers recipients
• Police on the scene at a Villa Grove home
• Life Remembered: Popular classics prof was 'legendary'
• Latest UI crime data shows felonies down, assaults up
• Champaign City Council to discuss costs of development
• Homer man injured in one-vehicle crash on Illinois 49
• Vermilion County group builds 200th wheelchair ramp
• Grant-funded program brings library to Fair Oaks children
• Georgetown superintendent ending 27 years with district
• Obituaries

» More