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News
State's attorney asked to investigate per diems : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisState's attorney asked to investigate per diems
| County board member says colleague was incorrectly paid for 49 meetings
| by Matt Schury
| 5/3/2012
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Kendall County Board member Anne Vickery said she has asked State's Attorney Eric Weis to look over per diem charges made by County Board members.
In a letter addressed to Weis dated April 23, Vickery enclosed 23 pages of findings and highlighted vouchers in which she believes board member Dan Koukol made errors collecting per diems.
Vickery said Koukol incorrectly collected per diems for 49 meetings at a total cost to the county of $4,165.
In the letter to Weis, Vickery expressed what she would like to happen.
"I believe the best way to clean this up will be for Mr. Koukol to make full restitution to the Kendall County Treasurer's office by check or cash within 15 days of your findings. I do not believe that Mr. Koukol deducting meetings to pay back the county is appropriate at this stage of the game," she writes.
She continued that added to the figures should be the IMRF/ECO (Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund/ Elected County Officials Benefit Plan) and taxes that have been paid on Koukol's behalf.
"Since I have kept detailed notes on the history of this problem, I will make them available to you upon request," she writes.
When contacted about Vickery's letter, Koukol said that he had been out of town and had not seen it yet. He added that he would "let the lawyers handle it."
"I don't want to comment at this time but Anne Vickery's name didn't come up when somebody told me about it," Koukol said.
Vickery said she is also asking Weis to look into smaller errors made by herself and fellow board members John Shaw, Bob Davidson and Elizabeth Flowers.
Vickery said she looked through all the board members vouchers for over 1,600 meetings and crosschecked attendance by looking at meeting minutes. She only found four findings for the other nine board members besides Koukol.
"It seems to me that the honor system for nine out of 10 board members still worked," she said.
She added that Shaw incorrectly collected a per diem for an HRA (Human Resources/Administration) Committee meeting, Davidson was accidently overpaid and Flowers did not charge for a meeting she should have. Vickery said she found two errors she made herself. In one instance, she charged for a meeting she shouldn't have and in the other instance she didn't charge for meeting she should have.
"Basically what you've got there is a total wash for everyone else," she said.
Vickery, who chairs the County Board's Finance Committee, began reviewing all the per diem vouchers turned in by County Board members. Board members can claim an $85 per diem for committee and board meetings they attend.
At the April 19 Finance Committee meeting Koukol has said he received approval from County Board Chairman John Purcell before collecting payments for the meetings in question. Koukol said he has also agreed to pay back any of the per diem funds that he incorrectly collected.
When asked why she asked the state's attorney to look into the matter, Vickery said it was "time to deal with this."
"I just asked Eric to looked into it and find out if his findings agreed with mine, if in fact there was anyway that John (Purcell) could bless those meetings or if I was totally off base," she said.
Todd Milliron, a former County Board candidate, also submitted a written complaint to Weis. Milliron's complaint requests an "outside of county" agency look into the matter.
Weis said that he couldn't get into specifics about either Vickery's request or Milliron's complaint but said that his office would be reviewing them.
"I don't know what course of action will be taken at this point," Weis said, adding that he also didn't know when he would make a decision.
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