Grundy County State's Attorney's office investigating cash payments to sheriff's deputies

MORRIS – Cash payments made to Grundy County sheriff’s deputies, a decades-old practice at the sheriff’s department, are being investigated by the state’s attorney’s office.

It was brought to the county's attention last month that sheriff deputies were being paid in cash for after-hours work for Exelon Dresden Generating Station, a nuclear power plant on the outskirts of Morris.

The Grundy County Board’s Law and Justice Committee met Wednesday night and discussed the topic further. Grundy County State’s Attorney Jason Helland told the committee his office has decided to investigate the issue.

Vicki Geiger, committee vice chairwoman, said Thursday she’s confident the committee will find a resolution, but the issue is now in the state’s attorney’s hands.

“None of us are qualified to do anything with this information. We can only refer it to the state’s attorney at this point,” she said. “We can’t give out any legal advice or concerns.”

Exelon pays the sheriff’s department to compensate the deputies who provide traffic control for the plant for its annual outage, when hundreds of additional employees are brought on to repair and upgrade plant machinery.

The outage can lead to traffic jams, which is why sheriff’s deputies are paid to help move traffic along.

But the money never has been processed by the Grundy County Treasurer’s Office.

The sheriff’s department cashes the check, and the cash is divided between the deputies who provided traffic control, with no input from the treasurer’s office – which means deductions such as taxes, retirement fund and insurance are not taken out.

“Is it legal or illegal?” Law and Justice Committee Chairman Harold Vota asked Helland at Wednesday’s committee meeting.

Helland said the state’s attorney’s office is looking into the issue and will deal with it in the future.

“The sheriff admitted in previous meetings that he made cash payments to deputies,” Helland said after the meeting. “It’s going to be investigated.”

Sheriff Kevin Callahan was present at the meeting but declined to comment. Last year, when he was appointed to fill the late Sheriff Terry Marketti’s place, was his first year organizing the Exelon traffic control details.

He previously said the cash payments to deputies for the Exelon work have been a common practice in the department for more than 20 years.

Committee member David Welter said the issue was brought to the Finance Committee and the sheriff’s department is cooperating.

“We’re just trying to figure out all the options we need to take,” Welter said.