By: Diane Benjamin
$135,743.79 + an adjustment of $130.75 got paid to IMRF so one employee can have a fabulous retirement with a spike pension! See page 130 Monday Bills and Payroll
That expense was completely avoidable, but employees came before taxpayers.
Page 109 – $580 for Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting. Did the City buy their own award (again)?
Page 110 – $2477 for wardrobe cabinets, Station 4. I wonder if all the fixtures and accessories were ever removed from the NEVER used Station 5 and put in other stations as needed?
EATING at your expense for March: (See page 106-computer won’t let me copy!)
$57,489.20 got sent to Springfield for lawyers. Page 80
Page 36 – the City gave away $982 to Friends of Autism . . .
There is no legal reason the City can use to justify giving away tax dollars to non-profits of their choice. I wonder how many votes that bought?
There is plenty more to see, but I just found out my husband is getting moved to Peoria.
Later!
OSF St Francis? The Lord watch over you both.
Forgot to ask, just assuming one OSF to another.
St Francis is in Peoria. It is their flagship.
There is only one doctor in Bloomington capable of doing a procedure he might need this weekend. He is going out of town, so they thought he would be safer here.
He will be in great hands! St Francis is a fantastic medical facility. Wishing him well and hope he starts the recovery process soon.
I agree with Diane. Are they buying favor? Personally, I’m not opposed to some charitable donations but there should be a predetermined cap, and let the citizens vote on a choice of variious organizations. The elected officials should keep their greedy little hands off who gets what! Use the technology that you have to run the contest!
Over the past few years I have noticed that the in-house legal department has been employing a local Private Detective because payments frequently show up on the Cash Disbursement sheet identical to the one Diane posted. There is an entry on this current sheet for Vendor #2578, Invoice #279875 in the amount of $1,275.00 made out to Integrated Investigations. I checked the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation, and no company using that name is a licensed Private Detective in this state. So, one of two things are happening: 1) the licensed Private Detective they are using Is using a fictitious name for billing or 2) an unlicensed company is selling its services to the city and the unlicensed company is committing a felony under the state licensing statute.
The use of a fictious company name is common for undercover work and surveillance services, and the use special phones at the office to be answered for this purpose is routine. However, no one would use the word “Investigations” if they were trying to maintain their annonomity. You would use a company name like Entertainment Supply Corporation or some other safe sounding name that wouldn’t peak someone’s interest. I personally met the the previous Private Detective who performed work for the law department in the past, but he was never active when I was the Chapter Chair for the Cenral Illinois Chapter and Vice President of the Charter in Chicago of the Associated Detectives of Illinois. This organization was a statewide group of license holders and company owners. and we employed a full time lobbiest firm to represent our multi billion dollar industry in the Investigative, Security, Alarm , and Locksmith industries. So, simply said, he was a very nice guy, but I never heard of him before our meeting, and he was not active in the industry.
The questions are, why are they trying to hide a company’s name when they did not in the past? Why are they hiring a Private Detective at all? The invoices have been rather low over the years;1.5k to 2.7 k per invoice and you don’t get that much case work done for that low of a cost unless you’re hiring a novice. Now if he’s serving process, then one has to ask, why aren’t they paying the Sherriff for that? I know that I won’t get an anwer from the City because they don’t answer FOIA’s truthfully if they answer at all, so I think I will just file a formal complaint with the Illinois Department of Professisonal Regulation and let their sworn peace officer Investigators find out who Integrated Investigations is and let them either prosecute criminally or civilly. This is not the optimal way to obtain information through their opaque transparency at City Hall.
Keep me posted!
So you’re against the Friends of Autism? More sour grapes on pensions?
I sometimes let the terminally clueless comment. Government can’t pick who to support with tax dollars because they are discriminating against every other non profit! Get it?
I didn’t think so
There is a State statute which says tax dollars are to be spent only for the function of government. Unless someone challenges the Council for violating the law, they will continue to do this.