McHenry County Blog

After a long interview with Huntley District 158 Controller Mark Altmayer, the Northwest Herald published an article about how the finances of District 158 were bleak.

It was so bleak Certified Public Accountant Altmayer put on a lengthy presentation to teachers internally within the district showing how negative the finances are.  Altmayer told the public the teachers “got it.”

Northwest Herald editor Chris Krug chewed on District 158 officials in his Sunday column titled

“Krug: D-158 strumming wrong tune”

In essence, Krug wrote in his column about not understanding how everything could have gotten so bad so quickly.  Krug blamed the teachers’ contract.

Well, the financial condition was never as bad as Altmayer thought.

Anyone who listened to former board member Larry Snow would have already known the numbers the district put out were screwed up.  Snow had told me, as he told me he did administrators and residents, that Altmayer’s projections were way off.

Altmayer admitted the the numbers were wrong at last night’s board meeting.

Altmayer attributed the $1.4 million mistake showing the district not having enough money to a “reference cell error.”

As if reference cells go around distorting financial projections all by themselves without human intervention.

It was not a pesky, reference cell varmint who made the error. Altmayer is the one who produced and presented the calculations to the media and public.

Maybe he misunderstood how property taxes are calculated. They are confusing.

In any event, here was another Huntley school official publicly crying wolf to the Northwest Herald, the paper printing the story and all it turned out to be was a large calculation error by the district’s finance guy.

When Snow blogged on the Northwest Herald website under Krug’s column on Sunday, he wrote:

“The budget for next year should be relatively easy to balance.”

Looks right to me.

And Snow isn’t a CPA.

At Thursday night’s board meeting, Superintendent John Burkey was talking about hiring new staff for next year.

“Bleak” had turned into “let’s hire more staff.”

Find money. Spend it. Pretty typical attitude for public officials.

In spite of all the hubbub over the minor league baseball stadium, only three people have filed for McHenry County College Board’s two six-year terms.

But, guess what?

One of the challengers, John Darger, was a frequent and vocal opponent to the board majority’s ill-conceived minor league baseball stadium proposal.

Darger participated in MCC board meetings.

Darger participated in Crystal Lake City Planning and Zoning Commission meetings…more than once.

An MCC student at the time, Darger said,

“I don’t see how that will serve the students of McHenry County College.”

Darger participated in Crystal Lake City Council meetings.

This is an active citizen who has probably decided that the majority faction on the McHenry County Board did not represent him.

And decided to do something about it by filing for office.

Darger is last on the ballot and you don’t have to guess if I shall vote for him, even if he is a Democrat.

A second candidate announced the McHenry County Promise at a March 2007 board meeting.

His name is Ron Parrish.

I have no idea whether Parrish supported, opposed or didn’t take a position on the baseball promoters’ attempt to stick McHenry County College taxpayers with paying off the stadium bonds if the baseball team did not succeed.

It is clear that the stadium put quite a crimp in the fund raising. Former board member Irv LeCoque made that clear.

Parish is first on the ballot.

The final candidate is CPA Mary Miller put her Certified Public Accountant reputation on the line by saying about the baseball stadium deal:

“Ms. Miller(‘s) refer(ring) to her CPA standing and stat(ing) that all the figures are in order for us to go ahead with this.”

And, then she and the board would not release the documents that she verified

Another variation of the long-discredited

approach to public decision-making.

Well, the public didn’t trust her and her colleagues.

Thank goodness.

Just goes to show that having passed the CPA test does not mean one can make good public judgments.

Miller is in the middle of the ballot.

Incumbent Frances Glosson’s term is also expiring this year, but she has decided to retire. She joined incumbents Scott Summers and Donna Kurtz in figuring out the numbers were not all in order.

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Ron Parrish is seen next the screen, followed by Mary Miller and Frances Glosson.

In spite of all the hubbub over the minor league baseball stadium, only three people have filed for McHenry County College Board’s two six-year terms.

But, guess what?

One of the challengers, John Darger, was a frequent and vocal opponent to the board majority’s ill-conceived minor league baseball stadium proposal.

Darger participated in MCC board meetings.

Darger participated in Crystal Lake City Planning and Zoning Commission meetings…more than once.

An MCC student at the time, Darger said,

“I don’t see how that will serve the students of McHenry County College.”

Darger participated in Crystal Lake City Council meetings.

This is an active citizen who has probably decided that the majority faction on the McHenry County Board did not represent him.

And decided to do something about it by filing for office.

Darger is last on the ballot and you don’t have to guess if I shall vote for him, even if he is a Democrat.

A second candidate announced the McHenry County Promise at a March 2007 board meeting.

His name is Ron Parrish.

I have no idea whether Parrish supported, opposed or didn’t take a position on the baseball promoters’ attempt to stick McHenry County College taxpayers with paying off the stadium bonds if the baseball team did not succeed.

It is clear that the stadium put quite a crimp in the fund raising. Former board member Irv LeCoque made that clear.

Parish is first on the ballot.

The final candidate is CPA Mary Miller put her Certified Public Accountant reputation on the line by saying about the baseball stadium deal:

“Ms. Miller(‘s) refer(ring) to her CPA standing and stat(ing) that all the figures are in order for us to go ahead with this.”

And, then she and the board would not release the documents that she verified

Another variation of the long-discredited

approach to public decision-making.

Well, the public didn’t trust her and her colleagues.

Thank goodness.

Just goes to show that having passed the CPA test does not mean one can make good public judgments.

Miller is in the middle of the ballot.

Incumbent Frances Glosson’s term is also expiring this year, but she has decided to retire. She joined incumbents Scott Summers and Donna Kurtz in figuring out the numbers were not all in order.

= = = = =
Ron Parrish is seen next the screen, followed by Mary Miller and Frances Glosson.