Will Co (ECWd) –
On December 23rd of 2015, I wrote this article, entitled “Taxpayers paying private corporation Executive’s salary“.
The lawsuit filed against D-210 on December 26th, 2015 points to some of the very same issues we raised with additional key points that expose what we would consider lies and manipulation for gain on the backs of the taxpayers.
On page 29 of the lawsuit, line item 133, we see the attorney has pointed to the School Foundation 990 tax form regarding their claim of no compensation for its Director. An issue that we too pointed out.
The form, which has an ‘X’ in the box next to the statement : “Check this box if neither the organization nor any related organization compensated any current officer, director, or trustee”, is a legal document reported to the IRS. (See highlighted section of the page referenced)
Looking at the statement on that 990 tax form, is there anyone that would disagree that District 210 is a related organization to the Foundation?
District 210 is in fact a related organization to the Foundation and they in fact have been paying compensation to foundation executives, yet the 990 filing falsely represents that matter. Claiming otherwise on the 990 should be considered lying.
Many may have forgotten that Al Capone was brought down, not because of his violent criminal acts, but because of IRS fraud.
As laid out in the lawsuit, “Ronald Sawin, (the agent of record for the Foundation as well as Assistant Superintendent) has advised a FOIA requestor that “The Foundation is a separate legal entity” from District 210. (See attached Exhibit FF at pages FF-58 to FF-59). Being a “separate legal entity”, it would not be expected that District 210 should pay the salaries of two persons to do supposed “volunteer” work for the Foundation nor should District 210 employees do “volunteer” Foundation work on District time for which they are paid by District taxpayers.”
Did you get that?
Taxpayers are paying District 210 employees to do work for a separate legal entity that basically lied on their tax forms regarding their compensation.
It would appear that lying has come natural for this group of players. According to Linda Lopez, Director of the Foundation who is a D210 employee, claims “The Foundation has never had an ownership interest in any physical property.”
Up jumps the devil!
One look at this document and we can safely say Ms. Lopez lied in her response to the FOIA requester! It is clear that physical property changed hands from District 210 to the Foundation based on the document referenced. Why lie about it?
In addition, the attorney who filed the lawsuit pointed out a very important issue that we missed. “District 210 has arranged a way for the supposed “volunteer” “Executive Director” and “Foundation Assistant” to not only receive substantial salaries and benefits, but also a public pension through the IMRF upon retirement. Neither charitable contributors nor the Illinois Attorney General have been directly apprised of the relationship between the “separate legal entities.”
How special that the Foundation gets to operate by a scheme of using taxpayer money to pay at least two people to run the Foundation, and have their pensions on the backs of the taxpayer instead of the Foundation where they are actually working.
We will continue to update with more information on the malfeasance by those in charge of the Lincoln-Way District 210 School District as it is clear the local media has done very little in the way of informing the citizens of what is really going on.
[documentcloud url=”http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2659705-Law-Suit.html”]
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7 Responses
Your recent article of Jan. 5th , “Did the former Superintendent ….violate the law”, advises the citizens of Dist. 210 to “demand prosecution of official misconduct”. The law suit that was filed is an attempt to keep the North high school open, and the current Board members are the only named plaintiffs, because they are solely responsible for closing the school. In your opinion, do you believe that the exposure of the wrongdoings of numerous administrators in this suit is sufficient to bring forth an investigation? This law suit was filed by 28 people using private funds, but how does the rest of the community represent ourselves in seeking restitution and resignations? Is it a safe assumption that the Will County Court will take it from here?
I follow your site and stories. I feel this school board issue since being filed in court, will be closely followed by school districts across all of Illinois. It really appears that ” you’ve got this thing and it’s f_\<ing golden" …… To borrow a line from our previous governor. Great job, guys!!!!!
Wow! More corruption? Time will tell. https://t.co/Mco9N0Eh21
There is a Will county judge on the Lincolnway foundation board, Bobbi Pertungaro…She is in charge of the civil division. How can we expect justice? This lawsuit needs to be moved out of Will county. The former mayor of Frankfort, Rossi is also a Will county judge with a wife who works for the district.
Facts: THOUSANDS of Non-profit organization scandals involving corruption…
In October, The Washington Post reported on internal financial corruption in over 1,000 nonprofit organizations in the face of charities’ efforts to minimize or bury incidents, in some cases without criminal complaint or serious recovery efforts. In the aggregate, millions upon millions of donated and other dollars disappeared from all kinds of charities, often without any public disclosure. All of this has moved government officials in seven states and Congress to call for investigations. Still more nonprofit corruption was exposed when CNN headlined a Center for Investigative Reporting and Tampa Bay Times report on fundraising, chronicling the fact that officials of the 50 most abusive charities enriched friends and cronies by spending under 4 percent of donations on direct needs.For example, the Kids Wish Network reportedly used nearly $110-million in contributions to pay solicitors and spent $4.8-million more on the charity’s founder and his own consulting firms—while spending under 3 percent of revenue on sick kids. Our nation’s key charity leaders declined to condemn these practices.
Please consider this before you donate to ANY non-profit organization or “foundation”. Ask questions first, like how much (what %) of the monetary donations actually go to the people or cause the non-profit is supposedly helping? Most non-profits use a considerable amount of the monetary donations for the needs (wants) of the organization, not for the people or cause it supposedly serves unfortunately. You should vet ALL non-profits like you should all political candidates obviously. Please consider this before you give a dime to ANY non-profit organization. Thank you. Have a nice day.
Question asked: Can the average person(s) receive or expect justice in our system as it’s implemented currently? NO!
Once you get more informed, you must obviously conclude that our justice system is corrupted and currently rigged against the average person. Now what? … is the question remaining. You decide that now obviously. Have a nice day.
Thank you! We’ve had to beg reporters to cover this. No one was interested.