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April 16, 2024

Tri-State FPD – Who is managing your tax dollars?

By Kirk Allen & John Kraft

On August 25, 2015

DuPage Co. (ECWd)
My concerns with the Chief of the Tri State Fire District began when I received a FOIA response with unredacted medical vitals of the firefighters under his watch.  (Click here for that article) 
My experience with public officials that shirk important duties is that they tend to be very lax in their other responsibilities. Chief Mancione appears to have confirmed my experiences. When looking up his name online you will find his company, Mancione, Inc. and its brother company Werk Management.
The online Yelp reviews of Werk Management were very poor, 1 star out of 5, but I cannot rely on their objectivity. (Click here for the Yelp review)
Both companies, Mancione Inc. and Werk Management have multiple active federal tax liens on them adding up to just less than $80,000 in overdue taxes for 2015 showing on the Secretary of State website. Just last year they had to pay off over $58,000 in overdue taxes.

Not only are there federal tax liens outstanding on his businesses, he is also behind in payments to the Illinois Department of Employment Security to the tune of over $13,000.

When I looked further at the state website I found even more incredible information-both of his companies are NOT in good standing with the state. (Corp. Record from Cyber drive)
What does this mean to the people that pay his salary as a public official?  Considering his personal business interests appear to be in disarray and he can’t keep up with his tax bills to the federal government or his payments to the state for unemployment insurance, it is only natural to wonder if those personal issues are impacting the taxpayers of the district.
Is there relevance to the running of a $18,000,000 a year budget and overseeing dozens of employees responsible for saving lives and property?
I believe such a financial quandary could or has led to an inability to clearly function at his fullest capacity needed in an emergency operation, however, let us not forget he disclosed private medical information of his own firefighters, but we will let you, the reader, draw your own conclusions.
Perhaps his personal finances are in good order. What of his personal property ownership? The DuPage County website shows he has two outstanding mortgages that add up to $750,000.

Looking online the minimum monthly mortgage cost for this amount is about $3,650. What happens when you add taxes to that? Well that presumes you pay your property taxes. Both of his tax payments for 2012 AND 2013 were paid late each year. When everyone else paid in June and September he got around to it in October. But the real kicker is that Chief Mancione did not pay his property taxes AT ALL in 2014 and the taxes were sold to the highest bidder. (Property Tax sold document)
Things must be getting better since he did pay his property taxes on time this year, but with the tax payment his total monthly payment for his house is about $4,400 per month. That would amount to about half of his after tax salary as fire chief where he made about $135,000.00 base salary that is more like $150,000.00 when you look at all the perks and benefits.
Amazing that even with all these perks and a taxpayer provided vehicle he has trouble paying his taxes.  (Click here for his contract)
It’s clear the current trustees have quite a mess on their hands to deal with.  It will be interesting to see how they deal with the public release of private medical information.
More important is going to be the filling of the vacant trustee position after the disgraced former Trustee Orrico resigned.  (Resignation article here)
By statute the current board has 60 days to fill the vacancy.  May I suggest the entire department rally behind a reformer that will put a stop to what has clearly been an embarrassment to the community.  Appointing a reformer means appointing a person with integrity and a backbone to stand up to those public officials who ignore the rights of the people.

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