McHenry County Blog

Tina Hill

Robert Martens

With McHenry County Chairwoman Tina Hill labeling Sandra Salgado’s service on the the Public Health and Human Services Committee “The Epitome of Conflict of Interest,” Fox River Grove Republican Precinct Committeeman has written a story entitled,

“The Epitome of Conflict of Interest” – Backroom Politics

Hill bases that characterization on the fact that Salgado works for Pioneer Center and Pioneer Centers gets financial support from the 708 Mental Health Board, whose Board members the Public Health Committee recommends.

[Of course, the last recommendation, Scott Summers was rejected by the Hill followers listed below on the County Board:

[Those opposing the nomination were

Scott Summers while he served as President of  the McHenry County College Board.

• Michele Aavang
• Yvonne Barnes
• Sue Drafkorn
• Joe Gottemoller
• Jim Heisler
• Tina Hill
• John Jung
• Ken Koehler
• Bob Martens
• Mary McCann
• Mary McClellan
• Anna May Miller
• Bob Nowak
• Nick Provenzano
• Ersel Schuster
• Carolyn Schofield
• Mike Skala
• Paula Yensen

In favor were

• Nick Chirikos
• Diane Evertsen
• John Hammerand
• Donna Kurtz
• Sandy Salgado
• Mike Walkup

[And the last recommendation of Donna Kurtz' Committee--after Hill announced that she would bypass the Committee--Jeff Thorsen, was not even placed on tonight's County Board agenda.  She has recommended Cathy Ferguson, a colleague of Thorsen on the Crystal Lake City Council.]

With that as background, Gasser’s conclusion might be of interest.  Playing off Hill’s “epitome of conflict of interest” statement, Gasser concludes

“The real conflict of interest is Hill’s nominee of former Family Services & Community Mental Health Center for McHenry County CEO and current board member Bob Martens (Spring Grove).”

Bob Martens Family Services’ compensation reported on IRS 990 forms  revealed in Andrew Gasser’s article.

Why?

He points to what he calls about a $140,000 “Golden Parachute” for Martens when he was listed as “Former CEO” of  the Family Services and Community Health Center for McHenry County.   (He found that information on the agency’s IRS Form 990.)

Gasser continues,

“This same year the McHenry Mental Health Board gave a loan to Family Services & Community Mental Health Center for McHenry County $719,981 when no other lending institution would do so because of the risk.”

Gasser then asks a series of questions that readers might find of interest.

One of them has to do with the August 2012 collapse of Family Services after Martens retired and while he was one of four GOP candidate for County Board in District 4.

Gasser asks,

“Should this person really be the liaison between the county board and the Mental Health Board?”

There is more, but, again, I suggest you go to the source of this story on Andrew Gasser’s blog.

As mentioned previously, replacement of Salgado with Martens will change the balance of power on the Public Health Committee.  It will put Hill loyalists in control by a 4-3 margin.

For 708 Board purposes, that means that Hill can name replacements for the two seats whose terms expire January 1, 2014, without bypassing the committee for a second time:

• Vice President Brett  Wisnauski
• Secretary Connee Meschini

Ferguson’s term, if approved, would expire at the same time.

The meeting at which Hill’s replacement recommendation will be considered in tonight at 7 PM in the building north of the McHenry County Jail.

Jeff Thorsen

Fox River Grove Republican Precinct Committeeman Andrew Gasser was at mid-day the Public Health & Human Resources Committee meeting and wrote an article.

He ends his first paragraph with

“So much for transparency.”

Commenting on Crystal Lake City Councilman Jeff Thorsen’s nomination, he wrote,

“This is the second candidate put forward by the PH&HS Committee who has a strong business and financial background which is so desperately needed on the McHenry County Mental Health Board (McMHB).”

Read Gasser’s whole article, as well as McHenry County Blog’s, as well as Kevin Craver’s in the Northwest Herald.

Take a look at a bigger version of this budget document at Andrew Gasser’s blog.  The 708 Board spent almost 20% more than budgeted.

That’s the mildest word that one might use after taking a look at Andrew Gasser’s blog today.

In an article about the McHenry County Mental Health Board’s budget, Gasser points out,

“The bottom line is that McMHB spent $712,117.20 more than it budgeted for on salaries and administration – this is an overage of 18.80 percent.“

The retired Air Force Captain continues,

“If this budget balance sheet were turned in as a graded assignment in a college accounting course the grade would be an F. Or, if you were conducting an audit you would inform your client that they had a serious problem.”

Salaries exceed the budgeted amount by 133$.

Employee health care expenses are 135% above what the budget says should be spent.

“Do we need to pay 31 employees $1,556,712.88 in salaries and healthcare to ensure $13,149,254.96 is facilitated to those organizations in McHenry County that serve the mentally ill (MI) and developmentally disabled (DD)?” Gasser asks.

The analyst has put the budget in his article.

Take a look at the red arrows pointing to overspent line items.

Then, look at the line items that were underspent.

Whatever the last 708 Board did right, budgeting was not one of them.

Andrew Gasser created this summary of 708 Board administrative costs, plus the “Fiscally Irresponsible” conclusion above it.  The budget is over $13 million.

Previously I pointed you to Fox River Grove Republican Precinct Committeeman Andrew Gasser’s article on salaries paid employees by the McHenry County Mental Health Board.

Last Thursday, Gasser broadened his analysis to look at what most people would call administrative overhead.

The finding?

It “pays out 20.96% in salaries and administrative costs.”

And the twenty-year Navy-Air Force Veteran doesn’t even put an exclamation mark at the end of the that sentence.

Gasser expresses his irritation at the way the over $13 million annual budget figures are presented on the Mental Health Board’s web site:

“…documents you will see that they have been printed, then scanned, and then inserted into this document.

“This is by design as to not allow people to easily examine the numbers.

“If you want to run any analysis in Microsoft Excel you cannot simply use a program that takes PDF data and turns it into a spreadsheet.

“You can either file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request or you can type it in yourself.”

The 708 Board would not get an “A” for transparency.

Gasser took the time to type in all the numbers and presents a spreadsheet that people can download.

I encourage you to read Gasser’s analysis.

Andrew Gasser

On Fox River Grove Republican Precinct Committeeman Andrew Gasser’s blog appears a story about 708 Board salaries.

He writes about the overhead of the Mental Health Board in comparison with that of various charities.

For example, the Mental Health and Addiction Network spend 3% on administration, while the American Cancer Society spends over 19%.

So what has Gasser found is spent by the 708 Board?

Thirty-two employees appear on the spreadsheet he has prepared.

The Board spends over 11% on only salaries and benefits.

Add it administration and the percentage would obviously higher.

If I were on the County Board, I would tell the 708 Board that I would not approve its levy unless its administrative costs were 5% or lower.

Andrew Gasser

Andrew Gasser, a Republican Precinct Committeeman from Fox River Grove has been active in his opposition to the referendum to hike taxes $60-$90 a year (the cost for $200-300,000 homes).

He was even interviewed by the Chicago Tribune for its article last Sunday. Maybe that’s why his web site was shut down by an 20,000 hits in fifteen minutes.

In any event, Gasser called me today to tell me he was opposed to the referendum to raise $9 million more in real estate taxes to help the Developmentally Disabled.

I have weighed in on the reasons for my opposition, as recently as yesterday.

That’s when I learned from the Tribune that the 708 Board is only giving 10% of its $13 million a year to DD services. (In that article I explain that when I was McHenry County Treasurer in the late 1960′s I delivered the first checks. My memory tells me I took $25,000 to Pioneer Center and $25,000 to Family Services. A 50-50 split, in other words.)

In any event, here is Gasser’s telephone message:

“Hi, this is Andrew Gasser, a concerned neighbor, calling to ask you to vote NO tomorrow on a ballot Proposition to increase your property taxes.

“We live in the 29th most expensive county… in the nation, yet the political class wants more.

“Why should we continue to tighten our belts to live within our means while they use our homes as personal ATM machines?

“Join me tomorrow and vote NO.

“Thank you.

“This call was paid for by Citizens of McHenry County Against Higher Property Taxes. (708) 320-1073.”

Just talked to Fox River Grove Republican Precinct Committeeman Andrew Gasser and he told me that his hosting service has had to take his web site down because there had been 20,000 attempts to break into it.

Since he is featured in the Chicago Tribune article today in opposition to the 377 tax hike referendum, which gives voters the opportunity to raise their taxes $60-90, I thought I put up his latest article.

But, first, here’s what the Sunday Tribune said,

“Critics of the proposal have been outspoken, if few in number. Andrew Gasser, an Air Force Veteran and a Republican precinct committeeman in Fox River Grove, said the tax will hurt poor and middle-class homeowners struggling to survive the recent housing bust and recession.

“Gasser said he has compassion for those with disabilities but questioned why they warrant a special tax, when many families also face financial strins while caring for loved ones with a host of other ailments.

“‘There’s a responsibility we have as a society,’he said, ‘but at the same time, government cannot do it all. People just can’t afford it.’”

Gasser’s latest article–with a table of the high tax counties that has been downloaded 15,000 times–points out that McHenry County is the 19th highest taxed countie in the United States of America.

Here it is:

McHenry County 29th Most Expensive County… in the United States

So it only makes sense that we raise taxes more so we can be number one.

McHenry County homes are the 26th highest in the country.

McHenry County is the 29th worst county in America to live when it comes to taxes.

Why on earth are people wanting to raise them higher?

No one in our state denies our government is broken, badly broken.  So why on earth would we raise taxes more?  Fear not McHenry Lake, DuPage, and Kendal counties are worse than us but Kane is nipping at our heals.

How many of our senior citizens who live in Fox River Grove, Cary, Huntley, Lake in the Hills, Crystal Lake, McHenry, Marengo, Spring Grove, or Woodstock can afford another tax hike?

How can the struggling poor and the over burdened middle class afford another tax hike?

But it gets better!  Tax day, April 15th, right?  Wrong.

Do you wonder why hard working people are fleeing Illinois?
We have to work longer to pay our tax bill.

Citizens who reside in Illinois have to work until April 25th to pay off their tax burden.  Compare that to all the neighboring states:

- Wisconsin April 20th
- Indiana – April 13th
- Iowa – April 9th
- Missouri – April 8th
- Kentucky – April 6th

And just as a side note I would point out that Illinois has more taxing bodies than any other state around us.  Heck, even California is better than Illinois.  Are we not paying attention to the economic reality we are facing in Illinois?  Are we just living in some fantasy world where we think we can tax and spend our way to prosperity?

Just look how bad our sales tax is here in Illinois:

Yep – Illinois leads the way in sales tax too.

Yep – Illinois leads the way in sales tax too.

Illinois is the 10th highest income tax rate at 8.2 percent.  Now look at our surrounding states:

- Missouri is 14th at 7.49 percent
- Indiana is 20th at 7 percent
- Iowa is 25th at 6.81 percent
- Kentucky is 36th at 6 percent
- Wisconsin is 41st at 5.43 percent

Tell me, where would you want to open a business?  Where would you want to live?  Where would you want to raise a family?

We are in a financial crisis.  Not just in the United States, not just in Illinois, but in McHenry County.  So many of us complain about our taxes going up every year.  How many of you know someone who has left the state?

I have one (former) constituent who left the state because she could not afford the taxes on her house she owned outright in Fox River Grove.  How is that right?  Her American dream is shattered.  She had to sell her home.

There aught to be no shame in voting NO against this proposition.  There aught to be no anxiety over what other people might think of a NO vote.  How much is enough?  How much does the poor and the middle class have to pay to satisfy political correctness?  Vote NO on Tuesday.

Finally – while everyone plots political strategy quietly in emails and phone calls, while everyone likes to run around calling themselves “tax cutters” and “reformers”, all the counties on the first graphic above are run by “Republicans”.

Go figure.

708 Board Building, the payment for which has diverted money that could have gone to services.

As I have reported in November, there’s an attempt to create a tax district similar to the 708 Board to serve the developmentally disabled population of McHenry County.

The problem, as I have pointed out, is that the 708 Board was created for that purpose.

How do I know?

I was County Treasurer when that referendum was passed in the late 1960′s.

It was supported by an organization that I remember being called the McHenry County Citizens for the Retarded.

When the taxes came in I took the first checks to both Pioneer Center, which was located in the old Terra Cotta School House off Route 31 and to Family Services, which was located on the street running from now-McHenry East High School to the Fox River (where the four-story city-subsidized four-story building is located).

As I remember, both those serving those then called “retarded” and those serving those with mental problems both got $25,000 checks.

The current maximum tax rate is 15 cents per $100 of Assessed Valuation.  Because of the Tax Cap that rate has been forced back to 14.5 cents per $100.  The taxes extracted last year approach $12.7 million.

The 708 Board started out giving 50% to the Developmentally Disabled side and 50% to the mental health side.

Over the years, Pioneer Center and others serving the same population have felt shortchanged.

That is the reason for the current referendum to create a special tax district to provide about two-thirds of money as the 708 Board collects. (If I am incorrect, please advise in the comment section.)

Just because the 708 Board is not living up to expectations of its responsibility of part of the population it is supposed to serve is not sufficient reason in my opinion, to vote to impose another layer of government and taxes on McHenry County.

I see Fox River Grove Republican Precinct Committeeman Andrew Gasser agrees.

His first article, “No on the 366 Board,” is unambiguous from the title on.

His second one, “The ‘Language’ of 377,” talks about who will be hurt most by permanent higher taxes.

This proposals proponents are running a virtual stealth campaign.

I found something on the internet, which I posted here.

Below is what you will see at the bottom of the ballot:

The 377 Board Ballot calling for a substantial tax increase.   It looks like 10 cents per hundred dollars of assessed valuation.

The strategy of a stealth campaign, often run by school boards, is to let your supporters know and ignore the undecideds and those likely to be opposed.

Good strategy.

Elections are about differential turnout, of course.  In other words, which side can get more of its supporters to the polls.

I did find the following card supporting the tax hike:

This side of the campaign piece supporting creating of the 377 Board and its tax increase concentrates on the need.

The argument made on this side estimates the cost at $33.33 cents per $100,000 of home value.  Virtually no one’s home is worth on ly $100,000, of course.  If one’s home were worth $300,000, it would cost $100 a year, for example.

The tax would bring in about $9 million., the proponents say.

Algonquin Township Precinct 4 Committeeman Andrew Gasser allowed his letter of recommendations to be published on McHenry County Blog.

Below are the in-person ballot results.  They reflect his endorsements.

Balloting in Andrew Gasser’s precinct in Fox River Grove.

Fox River Grove Republican Precinct Committeeman Andrew Gasser has published his Algonquin Township GOP primary election recommendations, which he has given me permission to share.

Here they are:

Consolidated Primary Endorsements – 2013

“All politics are local.” – Tip O’Neill, 1982

We have an election coming up in a week.

Many of my friends and neighbors in the 4th precinct are not sure who to vote for so I wanted to put together a small voter guide for the people that I am supporting in the Consolidated Primary to be held on February 26th, 2013.

As many of you know – I am a reformer. I am an articulate conservative who believes in the core values of

• fiscal responsibility
• limited government
• free market principles

These are the things that America great. These are the principles that are so definitively dictated in our constitution.

The candidates listed below will do just that for us here locally.

The is how we begin to rebuild the Republican Party in the belly of the beast, or in the lion’s den. I have attached a PDF you can download here to print out and share with your friends and neighbors. Lets turn out the vote.

Andrew Gasser’s Sample Ballot.

Chuck Lutzow

Chuck Lutzow is running to be your Township Clerk.

Chuck owns a small business in Crystal Lake and has lived in the local area for over 20 years. He is an active committeeman in the local party.

He does not want to raise taxes or government wages, however his opponent voted to raise her salary and the tax levy.

We simply can’t afford NOT to have Chuck representing us.

Russ Cardelli

Russ Cardelli was appointed to be a trustee last year and is now running for election, not re-election.

He has raised his family here in Algonquin.

He has made a name for himself asking good, difficult questions at township board meetings.

I want you all to know Russ was the only trustee who voted NO to the elected official salary hike.

We need to send him back to the township as a trustee so he can continue to work to bring down the cost of government, not raise it.

Larry Emery

Larry Emery is a retired business analyst who lives in Crystal Lake.

He is an active precinct committeeman who worked several campaigns as well as an election judge. He is running to be one of our four trustees in the township.

Larry has already attended several township board meetings and even has pointed out mistakes to the sitting board members.

His excellent “attention to detail” is desperately needed.

Melissa Sanchez of Lake in the Hills, a candidate for Algonquin Township Trustee.

Melissa Sanchez of Lake in the Hills is another active precinct committeeman running for trustee.

Even as she finishes up her double major in Political Science and Legal Studies, she has still found the time to work locally with the local party.

Like Larry, she has vowed to follow Russ’ lead and vote NO to raise salaries.

Melissa will be a great addition to the board and serve us all well.

I know many of you are disgruntled, angry, and somewhat detached from politics after November; especially nationally. However, all politics start locally.

Let’s work to build a stronger, more vibrant local Republican party that increases its influence.

Early voting is going on now so please vote today at the township hall!