By: Diane Benjamin
I’ve written for months about Bloomington NOT making their financial statements public yet from almost a year ago. In fact, very little financial information has been released, Renner’s transparency claims are now ridiculous.
The City was required to submit this information to the Illinois Comptroller’s office. The year ended 4/30/2016, but with an extension, the City had until 12/26/2016 to get the information to them.
(How can anything run without financial data?)
Below is the letter the Comptroller’s office sent to Tari Renner. As of Friday he has not responded. Once again, laws are only for us little people.
And the Pantagraph endorsed him because his experience as a Mayor makes him more qualified! Renner has been too busy traveling and campaigning to bother with financial reporting regardless if it is required. I wonder if he allows his students to have unlimited extensions for their assignments.
I talked to Diana Hauman this morning. She claims they are waiting on information from CIAM. CIAM left close to a year ago and destroyed documents on their way out. The City did nothing to protect the taxpayer investment. In the business world if relationships are severed, the locks are changed to prevent exactly what happened.
You don’t “wait” for financial documents when the law requires them by a certain date. They can be obtained through court orders. If they have been destroyed, that should be reported as well. These repeated acts are the biggest problems with this local administration and they cost taxpayers money–like the IMRF sick leave buy back and the Cadillac heath insurance. The administration is NOT proactive and fails to recognize the long term financial consequences.
So at $20 per day, the citizens of Bloomington owe how much $__________ for this completely inexcusable fiasco which is the DIRECT RESPONSIBILITY of David Hales? What in the hell are they doing down there at city hall. Twittling their thumbs? Renner claims transparency and the city manager Hales keeps his job AND gets a rasie every year? Pathetic!
They are waiting for the consultant to show them how to fill out the report, and how to write a check for the fine, and how to explain the mismanagement.