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April 29, 2024

Professional Development Alliance Takes Down Website; Dissolves –

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen

On January 2, 2024

Will-Grundy-Kendall Counties (ECWd) –

The 27-year Professional Development Alliance (“PDA”) of the Will County and Grundy Kendall County Regional Offices of Education officially dissolved over the weekend and its website was promptly removed from public viewing on January 1, 2024.

The PDA has been the subject of several articles of ours since October 20, 2023, mainly focused on the 2017 contract it entered into with Vista Learning, which placed the public body as an independent 1099 contractor for Vista. The PDA also had its employees working most or all of their time for the contractor while claiming Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (“IMRF”) eligibility as government employees. Additionally, the contractor gifted more than $874,000 in bonuses to government employees, hosted servers for an off-shore Casino, and announced its dissolution in mid-December 2023.

After our first article(s), the contract between Vista and the PDA was canceled and the PDA employees resigned, only for essentially the same contract being entered into with Vista and the Grundy-Kendall County ROE and that ROE’s hiring of the former PDA employees. After a FOIA request regarding the new contract, it too was canceled, and those new Grundy-Kendall County employees again resigned from their positions.

There are still unresolved issues with this arrangement, and we will keep reporting as more information becomes available.

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8 Comments
  • Sherry Brianza
    Posted at 11:56h, 02 January

    Happy New Year!! You guys are the best- thank goodness for your hard work!! Illinois is a better place to live because of your good works!’ Thank you!!

    • Kathiann
      Posted at 10:23h, 03 January

      Ditto this comment.

  • Dave
    Posted at 12:21h, 02 January

    Almost $2 billion dollars for fraudulent unemployment , now this…. the Pritzker administration is more organized crime then govt.. No wonder pension debt is so high

  • Jack Tarleton
    Posted at 15:42h, 02 January

    Na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na Hey-hey-hey Goodbye!

  • Kathiann
    Posted at 10:22h, 03 January

    Sounds like a slush fund to me.

  • Bob
    Posted at 19:09h, 03 January

    I’m their cleaning contractor. Mary Chignoli requested and agreed to projects by us and the Will County DA (represents the district) said she had no authority to do so. They also owe us for 9 months of breached contract now. Funny thing, we got a new key for 2 locks only in November. – Mary Chignoli and Hallie Brenczewskis office and the book keepers office. All other offices remained the same. They didn’t want certain people to be able to access these offices. 🤔

    • John Kraft & Kirk Allen
      Posted at 19:35h, 03 January

      they were probably busy trying to figure out how we get our information – but they supplied all of it thru FOIA…

      • Bob
        Posted at 10:38h, 06 January

        People with nothing to hide probably don’t go to such lengths but I digress…..

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