Lombard clarifies grant eligibility requirements

The Lombard village board narrowly has approved a new grant eligibility policy to clarify who can receive certain village funds.

The policy, adopted Thursday in a 4-3 vote, prohibits village staff members, elected officials and their immediate families, or business-owned entities from receiving funds from tax increment financing grants or community promotions and tourism grants.

The policy does not apply to members of the village's volunteer committees, boards or commissions.

It also does not prohibit village staff, elected officials or their immediate families from taking advantage of other programs that are available to the general public, such as the overhead sewer grant program, the backyard drainage grant program and the rain barrel program.

The two panels responsible for administering the grants referenced in the policy — the community promotion and tourism committee and the economic and community development committee — have been reviewing eligibility questions since last spring.

Trustee Laura Fitzpatrick, chairwoman of both committees, said she supports the policy because it brings “yet another piece of structure” to village government that makes it “better and cleaner.”

“All of this hasn't been easy. Change is always difficult. But this is just another step to improving and making good government in Lombard,” she said.

The policy stems from a dispute in May, two days before the lilac queen coronation, when trustees got into a tussle when asked to award a $1,000 scholarship to Princess Morgan Fugiel, the teen daughter of Trustee Mike Fugiel.

The village has used money from the hotel/motel tax to provide five $1,000 scholarships to the lilac princesses since 2001. The lilac princess program is run by the Lombard Junior Women's Club.

At the time, Fitzpatrick and Trustee Peter Breen said it would be a conflict of interest if Morgan received the money, even though judges who select the princesses live outside Lombard and are not privy to the candidates' last names.

President Keith Giagnorio and other trustees disagreed, saying it was too late to backtrack on awarding the scholarship. In the end, Morgan received the scholarship, but everyone expressed interest in looking at village policies to avoid being put in a similar situation again.

Both committees that reviewed eligibility issues approved the new policy unanimously. Trustees who opposed it Thursday were Fugiel, Reid Foltyniewicz and Bill Ware.

Fugiel said one of the only positives he could see is “the board will no longer be able to ambush a 17-year-old girl two days before the coronation.”

He noted how he has helped fundraise and select recipients for Rotary Club scholarships, but disagrees with the organization's unwritten policy that members' relatives are excluded.

“I think it's unfair that we can't celebrate the success of our members' children or grandchildren,” he said.

Ware and Foltyniewicz said they were against including part-time employees and their families in the group of people excluded from receiving certain grant funding. Ware said he felt doing so sends the wrong message to the community's young residents.

“We want our youth to get involved and they are getting involved, the parents are raising good kids, but no, hang on, we're going to penalize you because your parents work here 19 hours a week,” he said.

He suggested the restrictions be limited to department heads and elected officials.

Lombard Junior Women's Club member Stacy Schroeder asked to exempt the princess program from the policy.

“All the young ladies who apply are intelligent, outgoing and heavily involved in the community and their schools,” she said. “Yes, that means they were raised by good parents. But the lilac court should not be punished because of where their parents work, nor should village employees be punished for raising quality daughters.”

Giagnorio — who voted for the policy along with Fitzpatrick, Breen and Dan Whittington — said lilac princesses who are related to elected officials or employees are still eligible for scholarships, but the club will have to look elsewhere for the money.

“The way I look at, the policy is pre-emptive in nature. It's to prevent things looking questionable,” he said. “With a policy in place you don't have ... a gray area, you don't have a line that kinds of waves along and some people make it over it and some make it under it.”