Kankakee County superintendents behaving badly
It’s perfectly legal for people working for local government to engage in politics on their own free time, but if they are using taxpayer resources or facilities for political campaigns it can be a criminal act. A Freedom of Information Act investigation conducted by the Illinois Policy Institute has revealed potentially illegal activities being conducted...
It’s perfectly legal for people working for local government to engage in politics on their own free time, but if they are using taxpayer resources or facilities for political campaigns it can be a criminal act.
A Freedom of Information Act investigation conducted by the Illinois Policy Institute has revealed potentially illegal activities being conducted by a group of school district superintendents from Kankakee County, along with the regional superintendent, in conjunction with private firms such as financial conglomerate Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. and campaign consultant Unicom-ARC.
Documents obtained through these FOIA requests suggest school officials are using school resources on school time to conduct a sophisticated campaign designed by Unicom-ARC to raise sales taxes on Kankakee County shoppers. Activities include campaign fundraising, canvassing and advertising strategy for an explicit “say yes” campaign to hike sales taxes.
The Illinois State Officials and Employees Ethics Act prohibits public officials from campaigning for or against any referendum question during public time, and also prohibits the use of public resources in such campaigns. The law is extended to local officials, including school districts, which must enact their own ethics policies that are “no less restrictive” than the state.
Illinois state law outlines election interference issues as follows: “No public funds shall be used to urge any elector to vote for or against any candidate or proposition, or be appropriated for political or campaign purposes to any candidate or political organization.” A person engaging in election interference “shall be guilty of a Class B misdemeanor.” Anyone who engages in a subsequent violation “shall be guilty of Class A misdemeanor.”
Public documents obtained by the Illinois Policy Institute suggest that serious violations of state law have occurred in Kankakee County. The Illinois Policy Institute has provided these documents to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the Illinois Attorney General, Kankakee County State’s Attorney and the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office. The documents can also be found online here.
Possible violations include:
- Repeated improper use of public resources and facilities for meetings of a superintendent-led Kankakee County sales tax hike committee during regular school hours.
- Improper use of public resources for the establishment and assistance of political fundraising efforts by Kankakee County superintendents on public property.
- Improper use of public resources for the establishment and assistance of political canvassing efforts by Kankakee County superintendents on public property.
- Suggestion of $25,000 or $50,000 payments to be made by various school districts to Steve Magruder of the International Brotherhood for Electrical Workers, or IBEW, for the apparent purpose of political campaigning in support of a pro-sales-tax-hike referendum.
- Improper use of public resources to establish and recruit volunteers for pro-sales-tax-hike referendum “say yes” committees.
- Establishment of advertising strategy in support of pro-sales-tax-hike referendum.
- Potentially prohibited gifts from Unicom-ARC to local school districts in the form of flyer design work.
- Failure to respond to FOIA request.
The Illinois Policy Institute believes these possible infractions are potentially serious violations of the following state and federal laws:
(5 ILCS 430/) State Officials and Employees Ethics Act
(10 ILCS 5/9-25.1) Illinois Election Code: Election interference
The Hatch Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 7321-7326
Issue No. 1: Extensive and repeated use of public resources during regular school hours by numerous school superintendents from Kankakee County – along with political consultants – who formed a sales tax hike committee to develop and execute a political electioneering plan to pass a countywide sales tax referendum in potential violation of state and federal laws.
General sales tax hike campaign meetings:
1 p.m. Tuesday, April 22, at the Bourbonnais District Office
1 p.m. Tuesday, May 6, at the Kankakee County Administrative Building (Mike Bossert)
9 a.m. Thursday, June 5, at the Bourbonnais District Office (Stifel reps)
10:30 a.m. Thursday, June 19, at Bradley School District 61 Office (Stifel reps)
1 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, at the Bourbonnais District Office (Stifel reps)
1 p.m. Thursday, July 10, at the Bourbonnais District Office
11 a.m. Thursday, July 24, at the Bourbonnais District Office
1 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 7, at the Bourbonnais District Office
1 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 21, at the Bourbonnais District Office
9:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 5, at the Bourbonnais District Office
11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, unknown location (Stifel reps)
1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, at the Bourbonnais District Office
2:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, unknown location
Facebook advertising meetings (Bourbonnais, Bradley, Manteno, St. George and Momence)
Noon Wednesday, Aug. 28, unknown location
1 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18, at the Bourbonnais District Office
1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, unknown location
Fundraising committee meetings
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27, at the Bourbonnais District Office
9 a.m. Friday, Sept. 5, at the Bourbonnais District Office
6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18, at the Bourbonais District Office
6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, unknown location
Canvassing committee meetings
4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18, at the Bourbonnais District Office (Stifel reps)
4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, unknown location
On Aug. 9, an email from Scott Goselin showed that a PowerPoint presentation created by Unicom-ARC was given at a superintendents’ meeting on Aug. 7. An email with the presentation attached can be found on pages 163-188 of the document titled “Evidence #2 – Canvassing Presentation.”
The presentation outlines a large-scale sales-tax campaign involving all of the school districts in the county. The campaign includes fundraising and canvassing efforts, as well as community outreach and extensive marketing through mailers, newspaper ads, a speakers’ bureau and other media.
Issue No. 2: Improper use of public resources for the establishment and assistance of political fundraising efforts by Kankakee County superintendents on public property.
In a Sept. 7 email from Scott Goselin to the Kankakee County superintendents, in reference to the sales tax hike campaign, Goselin discusses the upcoming superintendents’ meeting on Sept. 10. Goselin writes: “Please bring a list of vendors for your district – past 3-4 years (construction and nonconstruction) so we can discuss further fundraising opportunities. We need about 40-50 vendors to help with fundraising costs.”
In another email sent on Sept. 10, Goselin asks for the contact information for vendors in all of the districts and refers to campaign volunteers on the fundraising committee “calling vendors and asking for money.”
An investigation should be conducted to determine if individual school districts shared vendor lists in order to solicit contributions from the companies for the sales tax campaign committee.
Issue No. 3: Improper use of public resources for the establishment and assistance of political canvassing efforts by Kankakee County superintendents on public property.
An email from Scott Goselin to Kankakee County superintendents on Sept. 26 included materials to be distributed to the county’s canvassing committee. The email, on page 27 of the document titled “Evidence #1 – Kankakee Canvassing Email,” included a script for canvassers that features explicitly pro-sales-tax-referendum language. The document “Message[1]” instructs canvassers to attempt to convince undecided voters by telling them that the tax is “needed” and “just common sense.”
The other materials for the canvassing committee in the email prominently feature a logo that reads “Vote Schools Yes.” The materials say they were paid for by Friends of Kankakee County Schools, a pro-referendum citizens’ group that uses the same logo. This further suggests that the canvassing committee plans to advocate for the sales tax referendum using public resources, and coordination between school districts and the campaign committee.
Issue No. 4: Suggestion of $25,000 or $50,000 payments to be made by various school districts to Steve Magruder of the International Brotherhood for Electrical Workers, or IBEW, for purposes of political campaigning in support of pro-sales-tax-hike referendum.
In an email from Scott Goselin to Kankakee County superintendents and representatives from Stifel and Unicom-ARC on Sept. 7, Goselin mentioned “Notes from the meeting on Friday….” He also wrote: “Steve Magruder spoke to us about a (CWA – Community Work Agreement). This agreement seems to be better than the PLA he mentioned before. He is out of town for the next few days but he will try to send an example agreement for us to review. I did speak to him about the cap bid limit of $25K or $50K per district decision. He seemed ok with that but will have to check with his Board as well.”
All of the school districts involved should be investigated for potential illegal electioneering contracts with Steve Magruder and IBEW.
Issue No. 5: Improper use of public resources to establish and recruit volunteers for pro-sales-tax-hike referendum “say yes” committees.
In a June 24 email to the superintendents of Kankakee County, representatives from Unicom-ARC and Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Scott Goselin sent a timeline for the sales tax referendum campaign. The timeline, created by Unicom-ARC’s Rod Wright, was also distributed at the superintendents’ meeting on June 25.
On the timeline, there are several references to possible Vote Yes activities. Tentative plans include “development of ‘Vote-Yes’ materials” from August to October and a “Vote-Yes Speakers Bureau” scheduled to begin in September.
An Aug. 9 email from Scott Goselin revealed that a PowerPoint presentation created by Unicom-ARC was given at a superintendents’ meeting on Aug. 7. The presentation can be found in the document “Bradley 61 Unicom,” as well as on pages 169-188 of the document titled “Evidence #2 – Canvassing Presentation.”
On page 184, the presentation refers to poll greeters as a part of the canvassing committee. The role of the poll greeters, as described in the presentation, is to “… greet voters as they arrive at polls, give voters handouts, ask for Yes votes …”
Issue No. 6: Establishment of advertising strategy in support of pro-sales-tax-hike referendum.
In an email from Aug. 14, Scott Goselin sent the school districts a document called “MySchoolGrid Services Basic[1].” The document promotes a Facebook advertising service. The email refers to a previous meeting when John Hickman, a Missouri-based technology entrepreneur, gave a presentation about implementing social media in the sales tax campaign.
Further emails refer to meetings where Hickman spoke with school district officials. An email from Scott Goselin sent on Sept. 17 names Bourbonnais, Bradley, Manteno, St. George and Momence as the districts that have taken part in the Facebook advertising campaign. All of the following Facebook pages appear to have one-sided information in support of the sales tax hike campaign.
https://www.facebook.com/BESD53
https://www.facebook.com/BradleySchools
https://www.facebook.com/manteno.schools
https://www.facebook.com/SGCCSD258
https://www.facebook.com/mcusd1
An investigation should be conducted in the districts involved to determine whether the Facebook advertising the school districts ran was explicitly in support of the sales-tax referendum as well as determining if any public funds were used to pay for the Facebook campaign.
Issue No. 7: Possibility that Unicom-ARC gave prohibited gifts to local school districts in the form of flyer design work.
Unicom-ARC creates “informational” brochures for school districts.
In an email from Rod Wright of Unicom-ARC to Kankakee County superintendents on July 23, a document called “KankakeeShort” was attached. The document gives the basic outline for an informational brochure. Wright’s email said that they will discuss producing the brochure at the next superintendents’ meeting.
Mariah Murphy, production coordinator at Unicom-ARC, sent Kankakee 111 Superintendent Genevra Walters a sales-tax flyer by email on Aug. 13. The flyer was created by Unicom-ARC.
Issue No. 8: Failure to respond to Freedom of Information Act request – Momence CUSD 1
In a response to our FOIA request, the district said that they were unable to search the emails for the key terms mentioned in the Illinois Policy Institute’s FOIA request because of the infrastructure of the district’s email system. Though district officials were clearly unable to send the requested emails, they also failed to send other requested documents that should have been readily available to district administrators.
The Illinois Policy Institute has filed a request for review on this issue with the Illinois Public Access Counselor.