Past due: Bills from DuPage County clerk in question again

With the November election rapidly approaching, invoices from the DuPage County clerk’s office once again are being held up for payment – a move the county clerk said has cost the county about $25,000.

DuPage County Auditor Bill White said in an Aug. 21 memorandum that the county has been unable to pay 13 invoices totaling $142,823. The reason is insufficient funds in specific budget lines or a lack of documentation to process the bills.

All the unpaid invoices are related to election services, including four bills totaling $57,614 from DFM Associates, a company that manages the voter registration program.

“It’s infuriating,” DuPage County Board Chairwoman Deborah Conroy said Aug. 27.

DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek said the latest billing saga caused the county to miss out on $25,000 in grant money because the eligible bills weren’t paid before the grant expired.

The company that provides the voter registration program is “unhappy” about the payment delay, Kaczmarek said.

“We’re concerned that they could just turn us off if they feel like it,” Kaczmarek said, noting the county has worked with DFM Associates for more than 20 years.

This is not the first time the clerk’s office has found itself with unpaid bills because of accounting or procurement questions.

In May, the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office was poised to take legal action against the county clerk’s office related to unpaid bills. But a lawsuit never materialized because the county paid the bills.

DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin on Aug. 28 indicated his office may get involved in the latest dispute.

“My office is currently gathering information regarding the clerk’s outstanding bills and I am considering taking legal action to force the clerk to comply with the law so the county can pay her office’s bills,” Berlin said in a written statement.

Documents show the latest invoices in question range from an April bill totaling $27.83 from ComEd for electricity at a polling place to a $60,775 August invoice from Runbeck Election Services for paper for ballots for the November election.

In response to White’s Aug. 21 memo, Chief Deputy County Clerk Adam Johnson pointed to a previous opinion from the Illinois attorney general’s office saying once a county board approves the annual appropriation for a countywide office, the county cannot stop payment on bills. The same opinion found a county treasurer can refuse payment, but only if there is a lack of appropriated funds, Johnson wrote.

The request for budget transfers between line items is not necessary to pay the bills as long as there is still money left in the three larger budget categories outlined by the attorney general’s office – equipment, materials and services.

“DuPage County just doesn’t do things correctly,” Johnson said. “They need to just start following the law and stop blocking payment of our bills.”

County officials acknowledge enough funds remain in the clerk’s budget to pay bills. However, they say the county’s accounting procedures require the county clerk – and any other department head or countywide elected official – to indicate which line item to pull money from if another line item is low on cash.

“I follow the policies of the county and what the state’s attorney tells me,” Conroy said.

The dispute earlier this year led Conroy to lobby for a change in state law to clarify that all elected officials, including those with internal control of their office, must seek bids on contracts or purchases totaling more than $30,000. In addition, the change clarified that a two-thirds vote from a county board was needed to approve budget transfer requests related to personnel or capital expenditures.

https://www.dailyherald.com/20240828/news/past-due-bills-from-dupage-county-clerk-in-question-again/