New DeKalb County administrator named

SYCAMORE – A nearly yearlong search for the next DeKalb County administrator concluded this week as the next government leader was named, hailing from a downstate small city.

The DeKalb County Board on Wednesday confirmed Corey Rheinecker, most recently city manager of Sparta, as DeKalb County Administrator.

Born and raised in Sparta, Rheinecker, 53, said he is ready for a new experience and challenge now that his children have entered adulthood. He’s expected to begin his new job as the top County employee by Aug. 11.

In Sparta, Rheinecker oversees a city with a population of 4,095, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. When he arrives in DeKalb County, he’ll manage a government responsible for more than 24 times Sparta’s population.

“Being a small town, anything that comes in is my problem so I’ve got to handle it,” Rheinecker said. “Here, it’s more of, there’s already professionals in place. I feel like it’s my job to provide them what they need to get their job done more efficiently and effectively. That’s the way I look at it.”

Rheinecker will replace interim DeKalb County administrator Derek Hiland, who also is the county’s community development director. Hiland took over for former county administrator Brian Gregory, who resigned to take a job in the private sector in July 2024.

DeKalb County Human Resources manager Tim Neubert said the county conducted two searches for Gregory’s replacement. The first search, which lasted from September 2024 through February 2025, garnered 34 applicants – including three internal job seekers. But DeKalb County Board members decided not to hire any of those applicants, Neubert said.

The second search, which lasted from February until Wednesday night, had 59 applicants but none were county employees, Neubert said. Of those nearly five dozen applicants, 14 were moved forward, six were selected for a first round interview and three were given a second interview.

Rheinecker didn’t apply during the first search for a new county administrator. He said it wasn’t until the second search window was opened that he was ready to shake up his career.

DeKalb County Board Chair John Frieders, a Republican from District 12, said the board’s executive committee liked Rheinecker’s 18 years of experience working for the City of Sparta.

“We thought he would be a good fit in DeKalb County,” Frieders said. “We thought he worked well with our executive committee, and interviewed very well.”

After the DeKalb County Board meeting, Rheinecker said he believes in working hard – a life lesson he credited to his father while growing up on a farm.

Not all present were in favor of his immediate hiring, however. Two members of the public urged the Board not to vote on the appointment.

Anthony Cvek, a former DeKalb County board member from 2012 to 2014, asked the Board to give the public more time to consider how they feel about Rheinecker. After the meeting, Cvek said he wasn’t surprised a new administrator hired before the county needs to prepare its fiscal 2026 budget.

“I think if it would have had a little more opportunity for citizens to kind of kick the tires on the experience of the individual that was hired, they might have gotten a little bit of input that maybe caused them to go in a different direction,” Cvek said.

The former county board member said he thinks the hiring process should have been more transparent because of the nature of the position, which holds the most administrative non-elected power in the county government.

He also said he’s worried Rheinecker doesn’t have enough experience to manage the county’s fiscal 2025 budget of $37.7 million.

“If this is the minor leagues, we’re talking about going from single A up to the major leagues in one call-up,” Cvek said. “That’s a big jump.”

After the meeting, Rheinecker said he understands “there’s always going to be questions” that surround the hiring of a role such as county administrator.

“There is no one perfect fit,” Rheinecker said. “I hope I can develop into that perfect fit,” Rheinecker said. “[Their] opinion’s OK. I really value the opinions that I don’t think, because I may not think like that. So differing opinions actually help guide the process.”

Willaim Heimbigner, a Lee County resident who lives in the village on the Lee-DeKalb county line, said he believes the public wasn’t given enough advanced notice prior to the Board meeting for Rheinecker’s appointment.

County officials did not respond to Heimbigner’s accusation during the meeting.

Rheinecker will have an annual base salary of $179,800, according to the employment agreement the Board approved.

He said he’s looking forward to getting out of the day-to-day operations of a small city, and into the nitty-gritty of longterm county government planning.

Over the course of his career development as a city manager, Rheinecker said he found election cycles would pivot the direction of the city, so he learned to create roadmaps for the city that could look beyond area politics. He wants to bring that approach to DeKalb County.

“We got to the point where we could lay that path out, and it has been very successful for us,” Rheinecker said. “I think that’s what we would need to do here, is create a path for 10 years, 20 years, down the road, where we think we’re going to be, what we think we need and starting pushing toward that.”