Chilling Action by Attorney General

The release of a complaint and identification of the sender of the complaint by the Office of the Illinois Attorney General deserves the harshest criticism and an investigation into the action that resulted in the identification of a Woodstock woman as the Complainant.

The complaint in question had to do with the expenses reimbursed to the incumbent McHenry County State's Attorney and was filed last year. The Daily Herald www.dailyherald.com had published a list of expenses that were incurred and reimbursed in the Office of the State's Attorney.

I may be wrong, but I believe a person filing a complaint and requesting an investigation of a possible impropriety, at the least, and a crime, at the other end of the spectrum, has a right to have his or her name kept in confidence. Otherwise, reporting dries up. People will not blow the whistle. The mechanism needs to be in place to protect the confidentiality of complainants. And that mechanism needs to work!

If you examine the listed expenses, anyone would question the propriety of many of them. Many were for what could be considered questionable items. Many had no explanation - just the vendor and the amount. Go and look at the list for yourself. Go to http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=41120 and then scroll to the bottom and click on See the Reimbursement Spreadsheet.

I don't care who is in office. These expenses need to questioned and explained fully. The McHenry County Auditor was right to look closely at these expenses. It's not just petty cash. The total is in the thousands of dollars. Was there a budget against which each of these items was charged?

Any executive needs a little breathing room with expenses, but these deep gulps of air are costing the rest of us.

$183.29 to Verizon?
$463.79 for shelves?
$882.54 at Sam's Club? For what?
$109.50 at Fast Eddie's? Looks like a car detailing to me. Was it a County-owned car? Isn't there a Maintenance Shop for this, where some kid is paid $8.00 to wash and wax cars?

Go and look at the expenses yourself. Kinda makes a person sick...