Calumet City Mayor Thaddeus Jones sought to score political points this week with an audit accusing a political rival of misdeeds.
Jones, who is also a state lawmaker, stood next to filing cabinets and other props staged in city council chambers Monday morning to discuss an audit that accused City Clerk Nyota Figgs of wrongdoing.
“We have uncovered serious malfeasance,” Jones said.
Figgs said Tuesday she and Jones dated years ago but she broke off the relationship because he was too controlling.
“I cannot comment on the audit as I have not seen it nor was I asked about any of the items before the audit was presented to the media yesterday,” Figgs said in a statement. “That said, I welcome a thorough and complete independent investigation into Calumet City. I have done nothing wrong.”
Jones and auditor Alyssia Benford of Bolingbrook spent an hour Monday describing alleged blunders by Figgs, who has been clerk since 2011. The audit itself, however, is so sloppy that it’s hard to tell whether the document is a blueprint for a criminal investigation or a political hack job.
For starters, Benford repeatedly misidentified the city’s governing body as a board of trustees. A fifth grader at Carol Mosely Braun Elementary School on 153rd Street could probably tell you a city council governs Calumet City, not a board of trustees. This is a purported forensic audit. Details are supposed to matter.
Parts of the audit read like someone copied and pasted paragraphs from a generic report alleging wrongdoing and was too lazy to proofread whether the accusations pertained to Calumet City.
“We were engaged by the Board of Trustees to perform this agreed-upon procedures engagement and conducted in accordance with attestation standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants,” according to the audit.
I wanted to study the auditor’s process and methodology for arriving at claims of wrongdoing. However, it was impossible to study the audit’s findings because the copy handed to me at Monday’s news conference was missing every other page.
All the even-numbered pages were missing. It was like someone intended to print on both sides of paper but failed to do so and didn’t bother to do a quality control check.
This is a forensic audit? Whoa. Citizens of Calumet City ought to demand a refund of the $35,000 the audit has cost them. Residents deserve to know whether they paid for an investigation or a witch hunt.
There may very well be substance to the auditor’s claims that the clerk improperly handled records before and during the pandemic, when City Hall was closed to the public for months. As clerk and collector, Figgs is obligated to account for every penny of petty cash.
One should welcome transparency and accountability regarding handling of revenue from municipal tickets, vehicle stickers and amusement permits. But how Jones framed the audit’s findings may reveal more than the findings themselves.
“In my opinion, the actions of City Clerk Nyota Figgs are worse than the clerk in Dixon who was charged, convicted and went to jail for stealing $54 million,” Jones told reporters.
Given the sloppiness of the actual audit, one could surmise Jones appreciates that the framing of the findings may matter more than the substance. Savvy politicians can be like celebrity chefs. They know it’s the sizzle that sells, not the steak.
In that respect, Monday’s press event was reminiscent of how former Attorney General Bill Barr framed a misleading summary of an extensive report by special counsel Robert Mueller about the 2016 presidential election.
There is a big difference between an audit conducted by a political figure and an actual criminal investigation. Benford, the auditor, ran unsuccessfully as a Republican in 2018 against state Rep. Natalie Manley, D-Joliet.
Benford’s campaign took money from Jeanne Ives, the former state representative who narrowly lost to the incumbent governor, Bruce Rauner, in the 2018 GOP primary.
State records showed Benford accepted $5,600 from John Rowe, former Exelon CEO who raked in more than $10 million a year in compensation. Benford palmed a cool $1,000 from Crown family heiress and philanthropist Susan Crown, records showed.
Benford pocketed cash from Richard Porter of Winnetka, an attorney who worked for President George H.W. Bush. Rauner appointed Porter to the Illinois State Police Merit Board.
Benford’s biggest benefactor, though, was Macneil Automotive Products. The maker of WeatherTech floor mats and other vehicle accessories gave $10,000 to Benford’s campaign, records showed. Former Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar gave her $6,000.
Benford’s clumsy attempt at a political smear would be comical were it not for the gravely serious implications of the accusations. Once the public gets a whiff of alleged malfeasance attached to an elected official, the damage is done.
Just ask Chicago Heights City Clerk Lori Wilcox.
Exactly a year ago, a forensic audit released days before Christmas accused Wilcox of misdeeds when she was president of the Chicago Heights Public Library Board. The audit alleged shenanigans by Wilcox and Kelley Nichols-Brown, former library director.
Wilcox, who also is Bloom Township Democratic committeeman, and Nichols-Brown were candidates for township supervisor and clerk at the time. Jealous political rivals cooked up phony claims to topple their political ambitions, they said.
If the two were victims of a scheme to weaponize forensic accounting for political gain, the strategy appears to have worked. Township voters rejected them in the April election. A year later, neither has been criminally charged.
In that instance, at least, one could read the entire audit and reach independent conclusions about whether claims had merit or lacked substance. The comically incomplete Calumet City audit offers no such opportunity. Page numbers are not the only thing odd about the audit.
Nowhere in the slipshod, scattershot mess of Benford’s audit could I find any trace of evidence accusing Figgs of stealing or using her office for personal gain. Figgs has accused Jones of bullying in a lawsuit. Jones Monday denied the claims.
We would be in dangerous territory if elected officials could use public funds to conduct ramshackle probes to torpedo careers of political rivals.
Someone in a position of authority, from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, the Illinois attorney general’s office or the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, ought to look into whether south suburban elected officials are abusing public resources for political gain.
Unless someone with integrity seeks accountability, officials are likely to continue commissioning taxpayer-funded investigations of political rivals.
Ted Slowik is a columnist with the Daily Southtown.
