DeKalb Co. (ECWd) –
At what point will law enforcement on College Campuses and State-s Attorneys start arresting and prosecuting public officials for their illegal acts?
Want a Red flag indicator that there is a problem in your local public body? FOIA their e-mails and see how stupid they really are. In this case, in the “Subject” line it tells us all we need to know!
“Delete your emails to me to protect yourself.”
This is the subject message on a warning sent via the Northern Illinois University email system from the then top financial administrator of NIU, Interim Chief Financial Officer Nancy Dezort Suttenfield; this warning was sent to a staff employee who worked in a department for which CFO Suttenfield had oversight. The recipient was an accountant whose designated job function was to prepare bank reconciliations.
We have already shown Ms. Suttenfield’s disdain for State rules in this article. Were these two individuals attempting to cover up something else? Otherwise, for why or for what was the protection needed here? Considering their job function(s), could it be possible that they were hiding something that would appear on bank reconciliations? Questions…
Besides the obvious questions raised regarding the motive of Ms. Suttenfield’s email warning, the State records Act 5 ILCS 160 requires retention of the records of all state institution; records that include emails. Was Nancy Suttenfield simply not aware of this requirement, or as in the past, did she choose to ignore State rules? It could be that perhaps her experience in private higher educational institutions did not transfer well to the knowledge of the requirements of public institutions. On the other hand, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
It appears from Suttenfield’s email that the state’s mandatory ethics training may not be adequate for this NIU administration and should be massively expanded to achieve the “ethically inspired leadership” to which President Baker attempts to lay claim. It also appears that this expanded training requires an emphasis on the training specifically for the upper levels of administration.
We once again have to ask: when will the NIU Board of Trustees act? Better yet, when will this common place disregard ever face the scrutiny of the laws in place that were established to prosecute this type of behavior?
[gview file=”https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Delete-email-to-protect.pdf”]
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