Campton Hills, road district at impasse: No new agreement

Campton Hills and the Campton Highway District are in a standoff over a new intergovernmental agreement for the continuing service of the village's 101 miles of roads.

The two had an agreement from 2007 to 2017. It then was extended another five years. After two 30-day extensions, the pact expired Monday.

The village gets motor fuel tax revenue from the Illinois Department of Transportation, which used to go directly to the road district before the town incorporated in 2007, said Campton Township Highway Commissioner Sam Gallucci.

Those funds can only be used for maintenance and resurfacing of roads.

Kane County distributes road and bridge funds to the district from its property taxes.

Campton Hills Village President Michael Tyrrell said the continuing issue is that the village now will require the road district to provide more documentation for its work.

Tyrrell said IDOT informed Campton Hills in 2019 that the highway district's motor fuel tax invoices were invalid and that the village owed the MFT fund over $330,000.

So the village went through a three-year audit costing more than $30,000 to document the road district's spending, Tyrrell said.

He said the village wants to ensure all future accounting is clear, accurate and documented.

Gallucci disagreed with that assessment, saying the village "sent incorrect paperwork to the state."

"They got all the paperwork every year for 15 years," Gallucci said. "Nothing has changed since 2007. ... I get audited every year. Every penny is accounted for. It was the village. Whatever they turned in was incorrect to the state. We gave them the proper forms."

Ray Weber, the assistant foreman and safety officer for the road district, said the village got audited because of errors by Tyrrell's administration.

"Our responsibility is to bill the village," Weber said. "We do not have any responsibility to account to IDOT for how the village spends their money. That's the village's responsibility."

Weber said the road district does not have the staff or the time to do its work. "We would have to hire a full-time person," he said.

If the village was being improperly billed, officials waited until the last minute to say something, he said.

"We knew nothing about this. He's laying it on us," Weber said of Tyrrell.

Tyrrell said Gallucci and Weber are wrong.

"I have the highest regard for Sam, and I want it to work out," Tyrrell said. "He just wants us to send 101 miles of road resurfacing funding per the county rate per mile. ... They're sending invoices for May and June, but there's nothing on here that says what work you (the district) performed."

Two weeks ago, Tyrrell said both sides verbally agreed to have the road district provide more detail on its invoices. But the updated agreement did not have the written language match what was agreed to in person.

Again, Gallucci and Weber disputed Tyrrell's version.

"He's (Tyrrell) twisting this because he has to have some way to dig himself out of this hole," Weber said.

Weber said Tyrrell's changes gave the village joint control when the road commissioner is the sole arbiter of how roads should be maintained.

Tyrrell said the village would fill out the IDOT documents for the road district. But it needs details of the district's work to do that.

"The IGA says they will supply us with the necessary paperwork that allows us to do our IDOT filings," Tyrrell said. "We will pay when they send the invoice and they provide the necessary paperwork so we can comply with IDOT."