The DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office plans to file a civil lawsuit against DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek and her office over $224,000 in invoices submitted for purchases not properly approved or made without going through a bidding process.
Kaczmarek threatened similar action in a May 7 memo to DuPage County Board Chair Deborah Conroy in which she said she’d instruct the state’s attorney to file legal action against the county if invoices submitted by her office were not paid by the county treasurer.
She maintains that county department heads and the county board have no jurisdiction over her office, citing an informal opinion she received from Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul in which he said county clerks are granted “exclusive control over the internal operations of their offices” and expenditures cannot be limited by a county board.
“DuPage County has ignored the legal guidance of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office for years, and the county’s improper practices must end,” Kaczmarek said in her letter to Conroy. “It is my hope that we can finally move past these disputes, pay vendors for services rendered, and focus on performing our respective statutory duties for the residents of DuPage County.”
It’s not known if Kaczmarek requested the state’s attorney’s office help in the standoff. However, office spokesman Paul Darrah confirmed the legal action against Kaczmarek was being prepared.
No information on when the case will be filed or who will represent Kaczmarek in the proceedings was available.
At the center of the dispute are four contracts totaling nearly $224,000 that have not been paid, including $189,949 to Truly Engaging, a printing company that supplied mailing material related to the March 19 primary election.
Kaczmarek came under county board scrutiny last month after a letter, written by District 6 board member James Zay and signed by several members, urged Conroy to arrange an inquiry into the contracts authorized by the clerk’s office but not processed for payment by the auditor’s office or sent to the treasurer for payment. Questions have been raised over bills being submitted without proper documentation and/or put out for competitive bidding.
“We are concerned that the clerk’s office is not following Illinois state law and continues to not listen to or take the legal advice of our state’s attorney office,” Zay’s letter said. “This issue of the clerk not working with the county has come to a tipping point and now we are talking about hundreds of thousands of ‘taxpayers’ money’ that have no oversight or transparency.”
Last month Kaczmarek refused to comply with a demand that she answer board questions about her office’s conduct.
Caught in the middle are the vendors who have not been paid for their products or services, in part because an unauthorized employee signed off on an invoice payments instead Kaczmarek or Chief Deputy Clerk Adam Johnson or an invoice did not contain such details as unit prices.
“We faithfully did the work as soon as we received the signed purchase order from DuPage County,” Truly Engaging CEO Brenda Baird-Watterson said during a county board meeting Tuesday. “Whoever has the legal authority … please pay your bills, pay us and pay those that are waiting as well.”
To pay the outstanding contracts, the clerk or deputy clerk need to sign the invoice and provide a description of services provided, Conroy said in an interview after the Tuesday meeting, a claim the clerk’s office contests.
“This board should not be in a situation where bills are not being paid, and this falls directly on (the clerk’s office), regardless of the procurement situation,” Conroy said. “These are signatures and a process that was set up by the clerk so this needs to be done.”
But Johnson said Wednesday that the proper authorization protocol was followed.
“It was submitted into the system, I approved it, the clerk approved it and then the auditor disapproved it,” Johnson said.
Payments to Truly Engaging and the other vendors in question were signed by the deputy clerk for elections and approved by Kaczmarek and Johnson, which is how the office has handles such bills in the past without question, he said.
According to Johnson, the state’s attorney’s office is supposed to be the legal representative for the clerk’s office and they were following their recommendations.
“We first learned, on the board floor, that they’re talking about taking legal action against us, which certainly makes it difficult to have confidence in their legal representation of our interests,” he said.
Other than the letter Kaczmarek sent to Conroy, there has been no contact between the clerk’s office and members of the county board since May 8, Conroy said.
“We are moving forward with the next steps because we have no choice,” Conroy said.
George Wiebe is a reporter for Pioneer Press.
