You paid for all the food, and state's attorney office ate it

You can easily see the white boutonniere that has become McHenry County State's Attorney Lou Bianchi's signature trademark.

Much less visible -- but far more costly to taxpayers -- is his apparent sweet tooth.

Bianchi has had taxpayers pay for about $17,000 worth of candy, cookies, chocolate, cakes, ice cream, soda pop, doughnuts, bagels, coffee and meals for his well-fed office and Bianchi guests since January 2005.

Freedom of Information Act requests for records of reimbursements, checks and receipts reveal Country Donuts, Dunkin' Donuts, Jewel Foods and Sam's Club are Bianchi's apparent favorites, appearing frequently among the almost $60,000 in total expenses and petty cash disbursements Bianchi or his assistant have turned in during his tenure.

Bianchi says all of the expenses are a legitimate use of tax dollars, pointing to food purchased for staff members who work very long hours and candy used as part of the department's anti-drug program, as examples.

His predecessor turned in about $6,400 total such expenses during his final four-year term.

Some of Bianchi's requests were for hotel and conference registration expenses, which normally are not routed through petty cash. No other McHenry County department does it that way.

Fine dining

Among the bills turned in for reimbursement, taxpayers paid for Bianchi's $714 swearing-in luncheon and $626 for another meal provided by Pete's Deli.

It seems he took just about every police chief in the county out to lunch along the way. Some got Pirro's or Biaggi's. Others had to settle for Applebee's.

Did you know you taxpayers paid $219 for a visit to Portillo's and $162 for a meal at Shaw's Crabhouse for the state's attorney's staff?

That's nothing compared to the candy and sweets bills.

At the end of his first full year in office, Bianchi turned in one receipt for almost $900 alone from one Sam's Club visit for cookies and "fruit wheels."

Thankfully, we taxpayers only had to pay $3.41 for the Dairy Queen trip.

Plenty of local restaurants should be glad he's in office. Then there's Sam's Club and Jewel, where the state's attorney has, apparently, also spent a lot of time.

Sometimes we taxpayers got off easy.

Take March 7, 2007. We only had to pay $2.38 for the state's attorney's coffee and a whole grain bagel. The day before we taxpayers bought coffee for two of Bianchi's investigators and a Blimpie's sandwich for his assistant.

One day we paid $143 for the state's attorney and eight staffers to enjoy Pirro's.

"Since there's no county credit card," according to his request for reimbursement, he also turned in requests for $300 for a bunch of Pirro gift certificates to use for "special meetings."

Sweet deal

The Republican state's attorney says they were business expenses, part of the cost of spreading the word about his programs.

The McHenry County Auditor says it's just wrong.

In her first full term as auditor, Pam Palmer says she was dismayed to find the glut of meals and sweets on the state's attorney's expenses that she analyzed after receiving the Freedom of Information Act requests.

"I'm just shocked," said Palmer, also a Republican. "Myself, I never would have done those things."

She already was working on narrowing the county's business expense reimbursement policy and said the Bianchi expenditures will put that on the front burner.

She will ask McHenry County Board members to change the expense policy so that her office doesn't have to pay some of these types of reimbursement requests.

As it stands, an elected official like Bianchi can get repaid for those expenses as long as they're within the budget approved by the county board, Palmer said.

Until policy changes, however, it seems taxpayers will have to continue to pick up the tab for lunches, doughnuts, coffee and candy. Lots of candy.

PR or politics?

Still, Palmer refused Bianchi's latest requests to be reimbursed for some of those sweets.

According to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the auditor nixed the latest attempts to turn in about $400 in receipts for parade candy as "political" versus public expenditures.

No other elected McHenry County officials ask taxpayers to cover the parade candy they toss to the crowd. Nor have they asked taxpayers to pay those parade entry fees.

"It's clearly political," the auditor said.

Bianchi says those are legitimate costs and are part of his anti-drug program.

"We're trying to reach out to children and save them from drugs so we don't see them in court," Bianchi said, questioning why the auditor's office previously approved reimbursement for some of those candy expenditures.

Palmer said those approvals were inappropriate and were due to limited manpower handling more than 37,000 bills a year. She now personally will examine all state's attorney submissions, she said.

Long days

Asked why taxpayers should buy his meals, Bianchi defended the food costs by saying his staff works long days, as does he. "I work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and sometimes that's my lunch," he said of the Dairy Queen bill. "I ask every lawyer to work extra time every day. … They're giving an extra 3¼ weeks a year in exchange for $7 for dinner."

He said he has to front all the office expenses since there is no office credit card and uses the restaurant certificates to feed witnesses and staff members during trials.

"If they're not legitimate, then the auditor should be sending them back," Bianchi said, adding that one of the hefty lunches was for civil division staffers to celebrate saving the county "millions of dollars" in a lawsuit.

"It's not for me," he said of the food expenses. "It's for whoever I'm with. I'm sure every public official does the same."

If they do, they don't ask taxpayers to pay them back.

"I do not see this level of activity from other elected officials in the county," said Palmer, who has now checked every elected McHenry County official's reimbursement requests.

"And it's not anywhere near this dollar value."