Is this why Bill Thomas has free reign in Atlanta? Gifts-Bonuses-Travel Payments?

ATLANTA, IL. (ECWd) –

Atlanta Public Library District – Many have wondered why the Board of Trustees of a Library District would allow such shenanigan’s to happen in Atlanta, Illinois over the course of the past several years.

From alleged false grant applications, clear and continued conflicts of interest, family members of trustees on the payroll, circumvention of prevailing wage act, highly questionable and suspect financial reporting, mixing of personal and public bank accounts, and inaccurate reporting of financial status to the Secretary of State – just to name a few.

Then the Board sits there quiet as a church mouse, even voting to blindly pay bills (and voluntarily gift away their statutory duty of exclusive control of library funds) three months before any bills have even been received – and one of the final checks written for the year being one for “Bonus and Gifts” written to Board Member and Board Treasurer, Bill Thomas – written to himself. What a deal! There was no board meeting to authorize a bonus and/or gift to a board member or anyone else – especially when the law explicitly states “shall serve without compensation…” – one would think a trustee of a library district would know how to read and interpret such a 4-word phrase.

Another questionable check was written to another Library Board Member, Lori Cotton, allegedly for “Rental income Union Hall” – which may be another illegal payment to a board member. Of course, we are looking into these questions surrounding this payment. It might be deposit reimbursement, however, it should have been labeled as such. We will provide an update on the purpose of this check.

Another questionable check was written to a company owned by Bill Thomas for travel expenses. It was written to Teleologic Learning Co. What is the Library doing paying for travel expenses to the company owned by a Board member?

Then we receive this photo (taken a couple days ago), and since photos are worth a thousand words, we will leave you without comment other than to say the conversation at this table was allegedly about how Bill Thomas was in charge of this and in charge of that and how “he” knows how to bring visitors to town, etc… (the guy on Bill Thomas’s left is the Chairman of the Atlanta Public Library Board (and employee of the City of Atlanta)).

Who paid for this meal?

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