Shelby Co. (ECWd) –
Budgets adopted by public bodies are supposed to have a purpose and accountability for spending by each elected office.
When a county adopts its budget, it is a contract with the people, and any changes are strictly controlled by the law, as outlined in 55 ILCS5/6-1003
As outlined in this article, the county board voted to hire a private law firm, an action not permitted by law. As explained in that article, it was actually the State’s Attorney, Ruth Woolery, who contracted with a private law firm.
We requested any payments made to this private law firm, along with the claim sheet that shows from which budget such payments are to be paid from. Now, most folks who know anything about local government and budgets know that an elected official who spends money should have those expenditures deducted from their budget, not another office. The provided documents can be viewed below or downloaded at this link.
Some may recall the Holiday/Overtime pay for legal services inappropriately applied in the Sheriff’s budget a few years ago as covered in this article.
Is anyone surprised that a law firm hired by the State’s Attorney submits their invoices, and rather than those expenses coming out of the office that hired them, they are coming out of the Highway Department budget, coded as “Maintenance Materials“?
Not only are legal services not “Maintenance Materials“, the billing should be going to the entity that hired them, the State’s Attorney, but that is not what is happening in Shelby County. The billing is directed to Michael Tappendorf, Shelby County Engineer and it is the Highway Department that submits the claim. According to Tappendorf, “the attorney is guiding my office, but she is by agreement a sub to the State’s Attorney. So the agreement is not technically with me.” (emphasis added)
So what good is an adopted budget when you have this kind of budget shuffle going on?
Another interesting issue with this is the fact that the board, according to at least 2 county board members, was told by the State’s Attorney that there would be no expense to the county for this law firm. Clearly, that is not true, considering the board approved the claims submitted for payment and paid them.
Another interesting twist in this matter is what we were told by the County Engineer.
“I also want to preface that no amount of the attorney costs is intended to be paid from taxpayers specifically of Shelby County. It is to be billed to the developer. This is what several other Counties do, and the developers haven’t been disagreeable to this that I am aware of. The states attorney has agreed to this as well.” (emphasis added)
Can anyone please show us where in the Counties Code, or any other law, that a county can bill a developer for legal services? We have not been able to find any such provision in the law. If there is no provision for such billing, who authorized it and under what authority?
The county elected a State’s Attorney and pays her $169,000.00 plus to perform legal services for the county. While there are provisions for her to hire a Special Assistant State’s Attorney, which is not what happened here. We find no provision for her, or any other office, to bill a private developer for work her office is responsible for.
As we have said many times, Shelby County is an entity that truly is in the Twilight Zone, as is evident by the above outlined budget shuffle and questionable billing claim.
We have requested a copy of all the billing sent to the developers and will update with a new article once we receive such information.
legal bills -highway department
