WHERE IS THE AUDIT...AGAIN?

SAUK VILLAGE |  In the footsteps of the criminal charges and a plea agreement for embezzlement by the Village Treasurer James Griegel, the Village has yet to complete and publish its audit reports.  Per Illinois law, the Village's Audit Reports were due October 31, 2016; however, the Village filed for an extension with the Illinois Comptroller's Office until December 26, 2016.  The date has come and gone and now the Village faces fines from the Illinois Comptroller due to delinquent audit reports.

Sauk Village has had a history of delinquent audit reports and Mayor David Hanks blamed it on the Police Pension Board for causing the delay at a meeting November 1, 2016.  The Police Pension Board denied at that time they were the cause for the audit delay. "We require information from the Village regarding payment to the fund for withholding of contributions from the members and pensionable wages for the members.  It took multiple requests, dating back to July (2016), to receive the proper information from the Village.  The final piece we needed to complete the IDOI (Illinois Department of Insurance) report was received on 10/21/16 where it was determined a withholding payments was incorrectly sent to the Fire Pension Fund instead of to the Police Pension Fund."  according to the Pension Board.

The Village Board approved a payment to the Audit firm last week from September, 2016 in the amount of $21,000 which could have been the delay in receiving the current audit report.  It was also learned that some of the Village Trustees, not all, authorized taking over $2 million from the water fund without a public vote, which in previous audit reports it was reported by auditors as being inappropriate to do.  Trustees Derrick Burgess, Kelvin Jones and Cecial Tates stated they did not authorize moving money.  Burgess said according to Illinois law a public vote should occur even if consensus was given to do so.

The Village's Finance Committee, chaired by Trustee Rosie Williams-Biag, has not addressed the Village's audit report nor given the Village Board any updates as to when the Village Board and the public will receive last year's audit as the Village is due to begin a new Audit as the fiscal year comes to a close in April. 

The Village had been denied a grant from the Illinois Housing Development Authority for $75,000 and the Housing Commission Chair said it was due to social media post, particularly "YouTube"; however, the prior Audit Report indicated that Village officials mismanaged the grant and one village official used an ATM card to make a cash withdrawal for the grant which is a violation.

Hanks was so excited that auditors finally completed audit reports form 2009 to 2014, which in many successful communities these are done annually without much fanfare.