Hawthorn Woods must curtail credit-card use
Spending limits are overdue as the village faces hard times.
In these uneasy economic times, you might find yourself wondering what would happen if your income sharply dropped. How long until you'd spend through your savings, have creditors at the door, lose your house?
It's a scary thought -- so frightening that the mere idea is a big contributor to a nationwide climate of belt-tightening. For a lot of people, luxuries like a $300 dinner for four are gone -- if they ever were part of the budget.
Hawthorn Woods finds itself in that kind of tough economic position. Income is way down as fees from new housing developments have dropped off.
Employees felt the squeeze. Eight got layoff notices in November. Six more will have to go, Hawthorn Woods officials said Wednesday, leaving the village with 18 employees.
But the $300 dinner foursome remained, charged by Mayor Keith Hunt on a village credit card in December. It's part of $9,992.77 Hunt charged at local restaurants with his village credit card between May 2005 and the end of 2007. He charged another $14,392 for travel during that time, village credit-card statements showed, plus nearly $3,000 for a village official's retirement party at Biaggi's Ristorante in Deer Park.
About that $300 dinner at Gianni's Café in Kildeer: Hunt says the village board directed him to host it as part of its search for a candidate to fill an open village administrator position.
The other charges, he said, primarily were made to court developers and go to conferences, like three International Council of Shopping Centers conferences in Las Vegas.
Excessive? It would be hard to argue otherwise. The credit-card tab adds up to more than $27,000 for meals and travel over 2½ years. And Hunt wasn't the only one carrying a village-paid piece of plastic. Former Village Administrator Jim Krischke had a village credit card, too, and used it to charge Hunt's $300-a-night hotel room in San Antonio for an American Planning Association conference. Likewise, Hunt says, some of the charges on his card were for other village officials.
Don't hang all the blame on Hunt. Village trustees generally have gone along, even after their auditor last year advised tightening credit-card practices and noted instances in which receipts were not attached to credit-card bills.
It's time for Hawthorn Woods to cut up the plastic for elected officials, replacing it if necessary with per diems, debit cards or expense reimbursements, the methods used by several nearby villages and the Lake County board.
Explicit spending guidelines also are in order, spelling out what and how much can be spent as well as what documentation must be provided.
Think of it as a new set of family rules -- rules that many people these days have to adopt if they hope to live within their means.