Watchdog Organization Calls Out Lyons Township School Treasurer's Office

The non-profit watchdog group Better Government Organization released a report on Friday charging the Lyons Township School Treasurer's Office with a number of oversight failings and questionable practices.

BGA found "big problems in the little-known public agency, including investments that appear to violate state law, financial records so shoddy it’s difficult to get an accurate picture of all the money coming and going, and an oversight board with little financial expertise but deep political connections," the report declared.

At the crux of the report is the continuing fallout over unused vacation and sick time allegedly cashed in for a massive payout by ex-treasurer Robert G. Healy, who resigned earlier this month amidst an investigation.

While most reports (including a May BGA report) had pegged the amount at around $100,000, Gerald Kubasiak, an attorney hired by the Board of Trustees of Schools to investigate Healy, told CBS Chicago that the ex-treasurer had actually overpaid himself by over five times that much: $539,000.

CBS also reports that the Board plans to sue Healy for the lost funds. Board member Theron Tobolski told CBS that "[taxpayers] can feel confident... this is one mistake that has happened" and fellow trustee Mike Thiessen declared that "we want the peoples' money back."

Among the new BGA report's other findings:

• that several financial advisors entrusted with investing large sums of township money were donors to a Healy-chaired political fund.
• that one of those, Joe Nawrocki, had made at least one investment for the township in an international bond, when Illinois law requires governmental agencies to only invest in large domestic securities.
• that one $4 million Nawrocki international bond lost $200,000.
• that the Treasurer's Office was working without keeping a professional budget.

Healy's attorney John Muldoon told the BGA and CBS he was "coerced" into the resignation and is innocent of wrongdoing. In a written statement to the BGA, he admitted only that "risk parameters" may have been "exceeded" by advisors, to no loss to the township. Muldoon promised a countersuit if Healy were to be sued.

Read the full stories from the BGA here and from CBS here.