Details of Dist. 158 complaint emerge

A Huntley Unit District 158 letter sent to the U.S. Postal Service alleges the district misled voters in a November 2004 newsletter, sources familiar with the complaint said.

The misleading information, sources said Friday, was in a section of the newsletter about the 2004 referendum titled "Dispelling Rumors with Facts."

The letter sent to the postal service notes that at least two passages within this section were misleading.

The U.S. Postal Investigation Service would probe whether the district in 2004 committed any wrongdoing if it mailed false information.

The first passage states that District 158 froze administrator salaries for the 2004-05 school year and did not pay the officials any bonuses.

School board Vice President Tony Quagliano said on Friday that while this was true when the newsletter was printed, an action taken by a district employee in December 2004 made the statements false.

"It was factually correct when they submitted (the newsletter)," Quagliano said. "Someone authorized a certain type of benefit that would have made it factually incorrect afterward."

That action is the subject of a separate but related letter District 158 has filed with the McHenry County state's attorney, Quagliano said.

The state's attorney's letter alleges that a former superintendent granted employee benefits he was not authorized to grant, sources close to the district have said.

District 158's superintendent in December 2004 was Steve Swanson, now the chief of Streator Township High School District 40.

Swanson was superintendent from 2001 until he and then-finance officer Paul Halverson resigned in 2005, after public outcry over misinformation distributed as part of the referendum campaign.

Swanson has not returned multiple calls seeking comment.

The second misleading passage in the November 2004 newsletter, sources said, claimed that all of the district's revenue was accounted for and that the district conducted yearly internal audits.

"We all have found that to be an inaccurate portrayal of how the district's finances were being run and reviewed at the time," Quagliano said.

Board members said they directed Superintendent John Burkey to submit the letters to the postal service and the state's attorney during a closed-session meeting on Nov. 13.

The Illinois Open Meetings Act allows school boards to discuss a number of specific issues, including litigation, student discipline and personnel, in closed session.

But the law requires school boards to take "final action" in open session and to publicly disclose the nature of the action.

District 158 board members disagreed over whether the decision to file the two letters should have been made in open session.

"It's definitely a closed-session item," Quagliano said. "We can't be jeopardizing a potential investigation."

But board member Larry Snow said that reaching consensus in closed session is a way for school boards to circumvent the Open Meetings Act.

"A consensus vote is a vote, no matter what anyone says," Snow said.

Snow admitted, however, that he did not raise the issue when he joined his board colleagues in directing Burkey to submit the letters.

Terry Mutchler, an Open Meetings Act specialist with the Illinois Attorney General's office, said it isn't clear if the District 158 school board violated the act.

"A public body is precluded from taking final action in a closed session," Mutchler said.

But she added she would have to investigate the specific circumstances of the closed session to determine if the board's direction to Burkey was a "final action."