UNBALANCED VILLAGE BUDGET APPROVED - HANKS BREAKS TIE AGAIN

Rosie Williams (far left) trying to make a point before she

voted YES to approve the unbalanced budget.

SAUK VILLAGE | This past Tuesday, Mayor David Hanks for the second time in the history of Sauk Village voted to break a tie vote to approve his budget which calls for a $3.3 million deficit.  Trustees Derrick Burgess, Cecial Tates and Kelvin Jones voted no while Trustees aligned with Hanks, Lynda Washington, Rosie Williams and Ed Myers voted along with Hanks to pass the budget.

The Hanks Administration presented the Budget to Williams and Myers, who comprise his Budget and Finance Committee on April 12, 2016 but did not release this information to the public.  A request was made to the Village for a copy of the “proposed” budget under the Freedom of Information Act.  The Village claimed it was a “draft” and was not subject to the Act and denied the request through their taxpayer funded attorney, consequently the Illinois Attorney General’s office was asked to intervene and make a determination if the Village violated the Freedom of Information Act for failing to make available a public document.  The matter is still under review by the Attorney General.

Hanks said of this budget on a social media post “This year's budget has gone through more scrutiny and provided more opportunity for public input than any year prior”.  We say emphatically that this statement is patently false.

Here are some observations on this years budget:

#1 The presentation and approval of an Appropriations Ordinance on May 24^th violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act as this was not placed before the Village Board of Trustees nor the public prior to this meeting.

#2 The Corporate Authorities did not hold any public hearing on the Appropriations Ordinance pursuant to 65 ICLS 5/8-2-9  “the corporate authorities shall hold at least one public hearing on that proposed appropriation ordinance”.  Last week the Corporate Authorities held a “Budget Hearing” and not a Public Hearing on the Appropriations Ordinance according to law.

#3 the public was not provided, nor privy to the Appropriations Ordinance 10 days prior to the adoption of this Ordinance.  The Trustees received this very ordinance on Monday, May 23, 2016 and therefore it is not in compliance with 65 ICLS 5/8-2-9.

#4 the Budget is not balanced as there is $13,269,223.28 in projected revenues and transfers and $16,634,917 in projected expenses and transfers according to the appropriations ordinance which means this is not balanced which leaves this budget out of balance and revenues short by $3,365,693.72

#5 the Budget, as proposed spends revenues within the General Fund which are not intended for the General fund.  There is no corresponding expenditure or transfer to the other funds for the corresponding amounts.

#6 Various funds are penalized for having to take up covering the shortfall of the willful negligence of the administrations past and present as money is spent in the General Fund and not their legally intended purposes.  

#7 there is no allocation, nor accounting for the outstanding bills owed by the Village of Sauk Village.  At times the outstanding bills reach $1.1 millions (per the 2015 Audit report).  A balance budget means that “all expenses and all revenues are balanced”.  If this budget was in fact balanced, it would have accounted for paying all of the bills and this budget does not.

#8 This budget is irresponsible as this administration has chosen to hire additional personnel and pay for them out of the water and sewer fund and they will not be performing any services for the water or sewer departments what-so-ever.

#9 This administration continues its irresponsible pattern of robbing Peter to pay Paul borrowing money to make payroll from the water fund and any other funds and it is irresponsible to hire more people that we need to borrow money to pay them.  

 

#10 despite the fact that Hanks and his allied Trustees voted to eliminate the Police Dispatch under the guise of a "cost savings initiative" in the 2015-16 budget, they have approved hiring additional personnel in the latest budget.

As Trustee Derrick Burgess said following Tuesday’s meeting “ this budget is irresponsible, is not balanced and continues to hide the facts from the residents and taxpayers of Sauk Village and is not fair to our employees and employees who were ‘laid off’ and have not been recalled from layoff”.

 

 

HANKS & WILLIAMS NO TRANSPARENCY

OPINION EDITORIAL
SAUK VILLAGER NEWS

The administration of Sauk Village Mayor David Hanks and his lead Bobble Head Trustee Rosie Williams continue to do everything they can to prevent the public from obtaining information.  Including invoking the taxpayer funded attorney to do their dirty work instead off issuing a simple "form letter" that they could obtain from the Attorney General's web page!  What is more disturbing is that instead of being open, honest and transparent, this dynamic duo have led an effort to keep Village business closed off from the public, conducted in the back office and veiled in secrecy.  Without even mentioning the numerous other occurences about "consensus" votes via email to the village trustees instead of conducting actual recorded votes at public meetings, but we're talking about this budget that they put together with chicken wire from the Hanks farm!  Hanks plops it down and asks the Trustees to hurry up review it and let's ram rod this piece of crap down the taxpayers throats before they taste it.  Mayors in successful communities do not have a budget process so closed so cloaked and so stupid as David Hanks.

This year's budget is yet another example of this administration's lack of transparency.  Hanks submitted his secret clandestine budget to his so-called Budget and Finance Committee on April 12th.  Rosie Williams is the chairperson of the Budget and Finance Committee and her co-chair Trustee Ed Myers.  A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on April 12th for a copy of the documents submitted to the Budget and Finance Committee by Hanks was refused.  The Village, through their paid legal team, denied the FOIA request claiming that this was a "draft" and therefore this was "exempt" under FOIA. 

The Illinois Attorney General was asked to intervene and issue an opinion on this matter, since the Village's Ordinance #15-012 which created the Budget and Finance Committee states "The Village's Finance Director shall make ever effort to submit to the Finance Committee, on or before March 15th of each fiscal year, a proposed budget for the next fiscal year..."  Any document submitted to a public body, like the Finance Committee, is a public document subject to the act we contended in our response to the Village's denial.

The million dollar question to all of this?  What the hell are they hiding in the first place?  Why not put out for the public to see what numbers you are proposing in your budget?  Over the last several days we heard your numbers discussed in an open meeting!  Then your arrogant head Bobble Head Rosie Williams was heard saying during the meeting "oh look he has a copy of the budget already...".  Well newsflash know-it-all Rosie Williams, the budget I had and was following was from last year that you voted on!  It clearly wasn't balanced then as you voted YES to and from what I heard neither is this budget which you will vote YES to and offered no solutions to the many many problems that the Village faces. 

SAUK VILLAGE FINANCIAL MESS - Your Tax Dollars

This is the first in a series of revelations of the 2014-15 Audit Report.  The Village was delinquent in filing their audit with the Illinois Comptroller (due December 26, 2015).  The Audit report (see attached link at the end of this report) reveals the status quo with the Village finances continues with 3 years into David Hanks’ Administration.

SAUK VILLAGE | While David Hanks praised Trustees Rosie Williams, Lynda Washington and Ed Myers for voting for unbalanced budgets in a social media post.  “Thankfully, last year the majority of the board (Williams, Washington and Myers) passed a worse-case scenario budget” Hanks stated on his post.  Residents and taxpayers should be steaming mad at how the Village’s finances are handled, these are your tax dollars.  Not necessarily what they’re spending your money on, but the manner in which it is handled by David Hanks and his administration.  Hanks proposes yet another “worse-case scenario budget” and plans on presenting a budget which he states “may reqire(sic) more cuts than last year”.

Trustee Derrick Burgess voted against the budget and appropriation ordinances presented by Hanks calling it once again “irresponsible and unbalanced”.  Trustees Cecial Tates and Kelvin Jones also voted against the Budget and Hanks voted to break the tie.  With that said, over $1 million dollars has been “borrowed” during the last year to keep the village’s accounts flush and to make the village's payroll.  All that despite Hanks claiming that the budget was balanced.  The Village’s water fund and several other funds have been tapped to pay the bills and not repair the infrastructure or other intended purposes resulting in interfund borrowing.

The recent audit report has revealed 19 material weaknesses.  A material weakness in a audit is a “deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the Village’s financial statements will not be prevented, or detected and corrected on a timely basis.  We (the auditors) consider the following deficiencies in the Village’s internal control to be material weakness”

1-      Audit Adjustments (Repeated from Prior Year)

Numerous adjusting entries were identified, proposed to, and accepted by management, and recorded in the Village’s financial statements, as of and for the year ended April 30, 2015.  Several of the adjustments were material to the financial statements, individually and in the aggregate.  The adjustments affected various asset, liability, deferred inflow, net position/fund balance, revenue, expense/expenditure, and other financing sources and uses accounts.  We recommend that the finance department (Mohan Rao) reconcile all account balances to the supporting schedules, document and other sources of information in a timely manner, in order to ensure that accurate financial reporting, during the year and at year end is achieved.  Those procedures should include but not be limited to the following:

·         Review of accounts receivable detail ledgers to determine the adequacy of the allowances for doubtful accounts.

      ·         Reconciliation of prepaid items to supporting details

·         Allocation of property tax receipts to individual funds based on the appropriate tax levy extension for each distribution.

·         Reconciliation of unbilled utility revenue balances to detail ledgers

·         Grants recorded in an appropriate manner based on the terms of the grant agreement.

·         Reconciliation of other tax receipts to state and other taxing authority reports

·         Review of construction, equipment, and other invoices to determine propriety of capitalization, depreciation and accrual of retainage of a liability.

·         Reclassification of held checks as a current liability.

·         Reconciliation of accounts payable and accrued compensated absences balances to supporting details.

·         Reconciliation of recorded debt principal and interest payments to maturity schedules.

·         Proper recording of debt issuance.

·         Reconciliation of interfund transfers in and transfers out, to ensure that all interfund transfers are properly recorded in the transfer accounts in the general ledger.

An expert on Illinois Municipal Finance, intimately familiar with Sauk Village’s financial history reviewed the Village’s audit and management letter and stated the following:   “I don't believe any of these are just normal issues.  In a well run environment, none of these issues should occur.  There should always be a system of "double-check" in order to eliminate any possibility of wrongdoing.  We have many of these safeguards in place to prevent fraud and provide transparency with taxpayer’s money.   What I don't get is the lack of attention being paid to account receivables.  What exactly does everyone working at Village Hall do?  Why is it that the Finance Director has no backup from existing staff? What does this so called Village Administrator or the Mayor do? (by the way the Finance Director  seems to have a lot of authority according to this report)?  This report is pathetic!”

 

 

***CLICK HERE*** VILLAGE AUDIT REPORT LINK

HANKS SHORT $457,000 IN UNBALANCED BUDGET

by Joseph Wiszowaty
SAUK VILLAGE | Finance Director Mohan Roa delivered the bad news Tuesday night following questions from Trustee Derrick Burgess.  The Village is short $457,000 to cover bond payments due and now Mayor David Hanks' administration is calling for borrowing from other funds, funds which are dedicated to other village expenses, in order to make the payments.  

Trustee Derrick Burgess said that this should have been foreseen and he called this out during the budget process in July and action should have been taken then.  Burgess presented the Village Board with a 21 page analysis during the budget hearing which Hanks scheduled a special meeting of the Village Board so he could dissect Burgess' analysis in minutia.  Hanks accused Burgess of offering "zero solutions" in his budget analysis.  "There are five other Trustees and none of them have offered solutions or analysis of their own, yet he (Hanks) didn't call out the rest of his board.  That's politics." Burgess said.  "I'm but one vote and he's got his five votes locked up on the Village Board" Burgess said.  "I offered an analysis of his budget proposal in July, nobody but me asked any questions of any substance during that time" Burgess said.

The Board will now hold a "special meeting" Tuesday, November 4th in order to play the musical shell game of "borrowing" special revenue funds to pay the bond payments due for the Village Hall, 9-1-1 equipment and Fire Equipment purchased. 

Burgess also called to the Board's attention to the fact that the Village will now exceed the budgeted amount in overtime.  Burgess brought this to the boards attention during the Budget hearings in July stating then this was budgeted way too thinly by Hanks.  None the less, the Village Board approved what Hanks called a "balanced budget" Burgess was the only NO vote!

Hanks sarcastically and arrogantly shot back that the Village Board has always had to borrow $500,000 from the water fund in order to pay its bills each year. 

Following the meeting Burgess pointed out that Hanks already had taken $300,000 from the water fund, borrowed some $29,600 from the water and CN noise mitigation fund to cover grass mowing and now is going to borrower $457,000 more.  "That's not $500,000, and we still have about 3 months of bills and payroll" Burgess said following the meeting.  "Just because it was past practice doesn't make it right.  Look at the mess we've been in because of past practice" Burgess said. 

"I want to see a plan from this administration on November 4th with respect to this money" Burgess said.  "They can't say they didn't see this coming.  I did, but I thought it would be in November.  I guess it came a few days early" Burgess said.

Burgess said that there was a $1.6 million deficit in the General Fund going into this fiscal year which began May 1st, and he predicts that will swell to over $2.5 million or more.  Hanks' budget called for no increase in the General Fund deficit, in fact he called for it to be reduced during his review of Burgess budget analysis.