Island Lake board moving to fire finance director

The Island Lake village board will consider firing Finance Director John Little at a special meeting Tuesday night, officials confirmed.

Little’s dismissal is not specifically identified on the agenda for the session. The document does include a motion to hire someone named Dennis Murray as finance director and to pay the consulting company that employs him $2,160 a week until Murray is hired permanently.

When asked what will happen to Little, Trustee Laurie Rabattini — a frequent critic of Little’s job performance — confirmed the board majority intends to fire him after a closed-door, personnel-related discussion at the end of the meeting.

Four votes would be required to dismiss Little, who declined to comment about the move against him Monday.

In an email, Rabattini said the board will consider firing Little because of insubordination, “including paying vendors without board authorization and refusing to provide financial reports and information to trustees.”

Rabattini’s remark about vendors concerned several payments, including ones made to Home Depot to pay for painting and re-carpeting Mayor Debbie Herrmann’s office and another that reimbursed the mayor for Walmart gift cards she purchased for local needy families at Christmastime.

The board voted to deny the reimbursements at meetings in January. But at the March 10 meeting, the amounts of both purchases were included in the sum of bills approved by the board, said Trustee Connie Mascillino, head of the village’s finance and administrative committee.

Neither expenditure was mentioned on the itemized bill list identifying where the village’s money was to be spent, however, Mascillino said.

Mascillino denied officials intended to hide the bills but acknowledged, “I certainly understand how it would look.”

Although he wouldn’t talk about the prospect of being fired, Little said he asked then-village Clerk Pam Miller to add the controversial bills to the March 10 list.

Little said he didn’t review the document before it went to the trustees for a vote. Only afterward did he learn the items were added to the bills’ financial total without being listed individually, Little said.

“There was no intent to hide anything,” he said.

Miller resigned April 4, primarily citing health concerns. When reached by telephone Monday, she said she recalled Little asking her to put the items on the March 10 bill list.

“To the best of my knowledge, I put (them) on there,” Miller said. “I don’t know what happened.”

But without the documents in front of her, Miller acknowledged she couldn’t say for sure whether she itemized the payments or not.

The bills weren’t Rabattini’s only complaint. She and other trustees have accused Little of not providing financial reports and other documents when asked. Rabattini has filed Freedom of Information Act requests to get some reports, an unusual step for a trustee.

Herrmann said she didn’t learn of the board’s intent to replace Little until she was called by a reporter over the weekend. She defended Little’s job performance in an email, saying he has ”always handled himself in a professional manner.”

Herrmann pledged to veto the proposed personnel changes. The board can override a veto.

The meeting is scheduled for 8 p.m. at village hall, 3720 Greenleaf Ave.