County inspector general rips small sanitary district’s board spending

County inspector general rips small sanitary district’s board spending


By Todd Shields
Sun-Times Media
tshields@pioneerlocal.com
Last Modified: Apr 28, 2012 02:09AM

The Cook County Inspector General’s office has determined three trustees from the Northfield Woods Sanitary District serving Glenview overpaid themselves some $264,000 from 2008 to 2011.

Inspector General Patrick M. Blanchard issued a report Friday to county commissioners detailing the allegations and calling for dissolving the district due its fiscal mismanagement.

Blanchard declined to name the trustees, but the district’s website identifies them as President Frank Ness and trustees Mike Downing and Mike Lockett.

Ness and Downing were unavailable for comment, and Lockett could not be reached.

The district was formed in 1956 to provide sanitary sewer service to then-unincorporated north Cook County. The district contains 1,800 homes and 400 acres of commercial property, mostly in incorporated Glenview, bounded by I-294 and Willow Road on the north, Milwaukee Avenue on the west, Timber Trails and Forest Drive subdivisions on the south and Landwehr Road on the east.

Among other findings, Blanchard said the trustees should have received $6,000 each in annual salary. But he said the trustees hired themselves for jobs to do jobs for the district, then paid themselves some $264,000 for those duties over the course of the three years.

In addition, they established a pension plan for themselves and made contributions to that fund, though Blanchard said the law does not allow them to do so.

Blanchard’s investigation also alleged that trustees voted to increase the district’s two attorneys’ total monthly pay from $4,650 to the $7,000 in 2010. When one attorney left in 2011, they continued to pay the other the full amount.

The board also allowed the attorneys to bill the district separately for certain legal work at $300 to $375 per hour, Blanchard wrote.

“The lack of a written scope of work management exposed the District to a billing environment that is ripe for abuse,” he stated.

The investigation charged one of the trustees was getting health insurance from his regular job and didn’t need insurance from the district, so he was given a $1,200 monthly pay increase instead to inspect district buildings and grounds.

County commissioners appointed the trustees, and Blanchard urged them to amend county ethics rules to allow the county board to recall district trustees found violating ethic codes.


http://www.suntimes.com/news/12178544-418/county-inspector-general-rips-small-sanitary-districts-board-spending.html

Editor's note: General Blanchard, don't bother with these little sewerage carp.  The big sewer is in the Probate Court of Cook County where the major bottom feeders art stealing millions of dollars from the dead, disabled and helpless.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster,  ProbateSharks.com