08-17-2009, 09:14 AM
Changes in City Council should be next
Comments
August 15, 2009
For some time, the mantra for those seeking public office has been they want to run government like a business. If that is the case in Waukegan, heads should be rolling out of City Hall from whichever department is responsible for the latest fiscal debacle to hit the city. Because that's what happens in business when people don't do their jobs.
We're talking about Waukegan being unable to issue a bond to pay for a judgment in a civil rights lawsuit stemming from a wrongful conviction. Instead of the city paying $475,000 a year on the judgment, taxpayers are stuck with a $725,000 annual payout.
The reason? The treasurer's office, which files the annual audit with the Lake County clerk's office and the state, is two years behind in its audit filings. The audits are used by bond companies to determine bond ratings. Without an audit on file, municipalities are stuck with seeking a high-interest line of credit.
It is the treasurer's responsibility to make sure those audits are completed. Former Treasurer Patrick Dutcher, who was defeated for re-election this spring, maintains he was "hounding" the city's accounting department to hurry the audits, but apparently to no avail. With this attitude, we wonder why the city even has a treasurer, outside of probably being required by state statute. But it also begs the question: Who was running the store?
According to Dutcher, it sounds like no one was because for eight years Waukegan was habitually late in filing its annual audit. Either incompetence or tortoise-like workers failed to do one of the jobs they were not only entrusted with, but paid to do.
Thanks to the Slowskis at City Hall, Waukegan taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $250,000 a year in interest to pay off the $10 million civil judgment owed Alejandro Dominguez. He was granted a full pardon in 2002 after DNA evidence voided his 1990 conviction in the beating and rape of a woman in a Waukegan apartment complex.
Like another financial problem -- a multimillion-dollar deficit which mysteriously surfaced, precipitating the call for public employee layoffs -- the legacy of the Hyde administration is taking some serious hits of late. We shudder to think what else was brushed under the rug these last few years. And where were the city's watchdogs, the aldermen?
We've heard of laissez-faire government, but when managers aren't doing they're jobs, it's time to clean house. Which is what Mayor Robert Sabonjian apparently did, bringing in former Gurnee Finance Director Tina Smigielski, who also has worked for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and the Chicago Park District's Office of Management and Budget. Let's see if she is a taskmaster and gets this ne'er-do-well department in shape.
At the same time, city officials should move with haste to post the errant audits, seek a low-interest bond issue and pay off what amounts to one huge credit card balance with its attendant usurious interest rate.
Perhaps this latest fiscal blow will knock some sense into the complacent Waukegan electorate and get them to start sizing up aldermanic candidates in 2011. Voters this year changed the mayor and treasurer. From our perspective, changes on the City Council should be next.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/opinions/1717577,5_4_WA15_EDIT1_S1-090815.article">http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/news ... 15.article</a><!-- m -->
Comments
August 15, 2009
For some time, the mantra for those seeking public office has been they want to run government like a business. If that is the case in Waukegan, heads should be rolling out of City Hall from whichever department is responsible for the latest fiscal debacle to hit the city. Because that's what happens in business when people don't do their jobs.
We're talking about Waukegan being unable to issue a bond to pay for a judgment in a civil rights lawsuit stemming from a wrongful conviction. Instead of the city paying $475,000 a year on the judgment, taxpayers are stuck with a $725,000 annual payout.
The reason? The treasurer's office, which files the annual audit with the Lake County clerk's office and the state, is two years behind in its audit filings. The audits are used by bond companies to determine bond ratings. Without an audit on file, municipalities are stuck with seeking a high-interest line of credit.
It is the treasurer's responsibility to make sure those audits are completed. Former Treasurer Patrick Dutcher, who was defeated for re-election this spring, maintains he was "hounding" the city's accounting department to hurry the audits, but apparently to no avail. With this attitude, we wonder why the city even has a treasurer, outside of probably being required by state statute. But it also begs the question: Who was running the store?
According to Dutcher, it sounds like no one was because for eight years Waukegan was habitually late in filing its annual audit. Either incompetence or tortoise-like workers failed to do one of the jobs they were not only entrusted with, but paid to do.
Thanks to the Slowskis at City Hall, Waukegan taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $250,000 a year in interest to pay off the $10 million civil judgment owed Alejandro Dominguez. He was granted a full pardon in 2002 after DNA evidence voided his 1990 conviction in the beating and rape of a woman in a Waukegan apartment complex.
Like another financial problem -- a multimillion-dollar deficit which mysteriously surfaced, precipitating the call for public employee layoffs -- the legacy of the Hyde administration is taking some serious hits of late. We shudder to think what else was brushed under the rug these last few years. And where were the city's watchdogs, the aldermen?
We've heard of laissez-faire government, but when managers aren't doing they're jobs, it's time to clean house. Which is what Mayor Robert Sabonjian apparently did, bringing in former Gurnee Finance Director Tina Smigielski, who also has worked for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and the Chicago Park District's Office of Management and Budget. Let's see if she is a taskmaster and gets this ne'er-do-well department in shape.
At the same time, city officials should move with haste to post the errant audits, seek a low-interest bond issue and pay off what amounts to one huge credit card balance with its attendant usurious interest rate.
Perhaps this latest fiscal blow will knock some sense into the complacent Waukegan electorate and get them to start sizing up aldermanic candidates in 2011. Voters this year changed the mayor and treasurer. From our perspective, changes on the City Council should be next.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/opinions/1717577,5_4_WA15_EDIT1_S1-090815.article">http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/news ... 15.article</a><!-- m -->