Attorney General orders Kane County to explain its lack of records for IT employee’s DeVry classes, grades

GENEVA – Kane County officials must explain their record-keeping system and efforts to locate records of classes and grades for a single employee who received a nearly $60,000 taxpayer-funded education at DeVry University, the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor said in a letter dated Wednesday.

The Kane County Chronicle is seeking the documents for an Information Technologies Department employee’s classes and corresponding grades earned at DeVry University. The county initially denied the request, saying it did not retain the records.

A previous IT manager returned the records of classes and grades to the employee, according to the response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

But in a Dec. 1 letter to IT Executive Director Roger Fahnestock, who is also the department’s FOIA officer, an official with the Public Access Counselor’s office stated, “We have determined that further inquiry is warranted.”

“As required … please provide a detailed description of the measures taken by the County to locate records responsive to the request, including the record-keeping systems that were searched, the manner in which they were searched, and the specific individuals and departments that were consulted in the search,” the letter stated.

The county’s response to the Public Access Counselor is also to include whether officials consulted the employee, according to the letter.

The county has seven days to respond.

The Kane County Chronicle requested a review from the Public Access Counselor, asserting that according to state law, the records sought are still public and could be provided by the employee, who still works for the county.

The request for review also cited a PAC binding opinion in which the public body cannot deny releasing public records simply because they were given to a third party.

The employee who attended DeVry still works for the county as the administrative services manager for the IT Department at a salary of $64,000, records show.

Kane County Auditor Penny Wegman first revealed the payments to DeVry last August after an audit of procurement card spending — credit cards known as p-cards — in which 15 of the DeVry payments were transacted over three years. The audit found that two payments were made by the county cutting checks directly to DeVry.

County records already released via the Freedom of Information Act showed that Fahnestock steered all of the payments to DeVry University.

Kane County Chair Corinne Pierog and State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser have asserted that the DeVry payments did not violate any county policy or criminal law — though county officials are working to change its policies so a situation like this cannot occur again.

Fahnestock has not responded to requests for comment.