State's Attorney Petty Cash - WOW!

McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi is taking some heat in the press for business expenses. The Northwest Herald did some light reporting on it, and the Daily Herald www.dailyherald.com carried more in-depth reporting.

See the list of expenses at http://dailyherald.com/special/07/bianchi/mackclm09.htm Better find the Tylenol first…

On September 23, the Daily Herald carried Mr. Bianchi’s rebuttal to the articles, which included the following statement about use of the office petty cash account.

“It was reported that since I took office approximately $60,000 was spent from those accounts. What was not reported was that of that figure, $43,000 was used for expert witnesses, transportation for witnesses, travel expenses at required seminars, vehicle registration fees, etc. These are routine expenses necessary for the daily operations of any prosecutor's office.”

I’ve been hanging around the business world for 43 years, and in my experience “petty cash” has always been used for minor, non-recurring expenses. You know, a can of coffee for the lunch room, photocopies at Kinko’s when the office copier was broken, a buck for a parking meter for a client.

$43,000 from petty cash for expert witnesses, witness transportation, travel at seminars (does this mean ground transportation from the hotel to the conference site?), vehicle registration fees?

What vehicles? County vehicles’ registration should be handled by the County’s vehicle fund. Whose license plates are being renewed? But this is a drop in the bucket.

Expenses should be paid by County check and only after presentation of an invoice or statement that gets signed management approval by a department employee authorized to approve such payments. Are such controls really not already in place?

Does the State’s Attorney really have $60,000 in the petty cash drawer? Petty cash – those are the $1, $5 and $10 bills and some change in a little box in a secretary’s bottom drawer. Well, at least that how most businesses are run.

If you would like to see some of the other expenses, take an aspirin and check out http://dailyherald.com/special/07/bianchi/mackclm09.htm You’d better take two aspirins.

What business owner/auditor would ever reimburse or allow such expenses as $321.54 at Portillo’s (2/2/05) without an explanation, including business purpose, names of attendees? $95.83 for mirrors at the office (2/2/05)? $206.04 for more mirrors at the office (2/7/05)? $100.00 meeting expense (3/21/05) - OK, what expense comes out exactly at $100.00??? $183.21 for Verizon??? Look at all the recorders he bought! $3.99 at McDonald’s sounds like lunch to me. $463.79 at Sam’s Club for shelves??? $50.31 at Biaggi’s with Algonquin PD Chief Laine? Chief Laine doesn’t have an office or can’t go to Bianchi’s office? $143.32 at Pirro’s??? $882.54 at Sam’s Club???

At the line for 12/12/05 I could feel my blood pressure going through the roof and I stopped there. No wonder County Auditor Pam Palmer reportedly left the office in tears one day!