Tag Archives: Guy Cahill

Peoria Public Schools

Could District 150 be getting their act together?

78 Comments

This is promising:

[Morton Mayor Norman] Durflinger, former superintendent of Morton Unit District 709 and who also sat on the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University, was hired as the interim treasurer for District 150.

Joining Durflinger as the district’s interim controller is Brock Butts, former Tremont superintendent. The pair will be paid a combined $500 a day, until District 150 is able to find a permanent replacement for the vacancies, made Feb. 17, when the School Board approved putting treasurer/controller Guy Cahill on administrative leave. That contract officially will end in April.

Additionally, the School Board approved hiring Michael J. McKenzie, a certified public accountant, to fill a new position: chief accountant and director of internal audits and external assurances. He will be paid $90,000 annually.

I don’t know about you, but this certainly helps my confidence level in the school board. It looks like they’re making a serious effort to get the finances under control and finally address auditors’ concerns that have been ignored for several years. This is the best news to come out of 3202 N. Wisconsin in a long time.

Peoria Public Schools, Public Building Commission

District 150 finances in question

52 Comments

Several days ago, I mentioned that audit reports the last several years for District 150 have been warning about inadequate internal controls. Things are no different this year, the Journal Star reports.

The internal financial review controls at District 150 are at the very least inadequate, resulting in errors, unsubstantiated account balances and generally leaves the district without an accurate day-to-day report of its cash flow, according to a letter from the district’s auditors.

I had also wondered how Cahill could keep his job with such terrible audit reports year after year. Apparently Cahill wondered that himself, according to an e-mail he wrote that the Journal Star acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request:

Cahill said he believed the [audit] letter, received from District 150 this week through a Freedom of Information Act request, would be used in calling for his termination, according to an e-mail from his District 150 account to a Chicago attorney, received through a separate FOIA request.

“The attached will be used by several board members who, I suspect, will call for my firing,” the Feb. 5 e-mail states. “What the management letter does not disclose is that most if not all the items reported have been the norm in the district for more than 14 years, according to auditors (Ron Hilton, Dennis Baily, and Helen Barrick), and cover the terms of at least three controller-treasurers.”

Interesting defense. He’s basically saying that internal controls have always been inadequate, so he shouldn’t be held responsible for their continuing to be inadequate. Not very convincing.

But here’s what really slays me. The headline for this story is “District 150’s books a mess.” But another report filed just hours before this one has the headline: “District 150: Finances in order.” This latter story is about District 150’s meeting with the Public Building Commission to assure them that the district’s finances are not a problem.

Nine District 150 representatives filled a small meeting room before the Public Building Commission of Peoria on Thursday, reassuring its members that the school district is on the right financial path.

“I want to reassure this particular body that the Board of Education immediately began taking action in January to adjust expenditures to meet those predicted revenue shortfalls,” Superintendent Ken Hinton told PBC members. “This board, this administration is completely dedicated in seeing that our school district is solvent.”

Not that this was at all necessary. PBC members appear unconcerned with District 150’s budget woes.

When asked whether the PBC has any concerns about the district’s financial solvency and the district’s ability to repay the bonds, Goldstein and Thornton said “no.” Both men also noted the commission had no concerns about Cahill’s departure.

Really? No concerns at all? The district “has projected it will have a $4.3 million deficit and possible $9 million-plus revenue shortfall next year,” and they fired their controller/treasurer, and their audit reports have been deplorable, but the PBC has no concerns? I guess if you’re an unelected body, unaccountable to the voters, you can afford to take such a cavalier attitude with property tax money.

Peoria Public Schools

Cahill not converted to digital

114 Comments

In addition to saying goodbye to analog television on February 17, Peoria Public Schools Board of Education said goodbye to Controller/Treasurer Guy Cahill. Cahill won’t be making the transition to digital at the school district. 1470 WMBD radio reports:

The District 150 school board Monday, without comment, voted unanimously to give the Comptroller/Treasurer his 60 days notice. Cahill, who was making a base salary of $125,000 a year, has been placed on administrative leave the next 60 days – then his contract will be terminated. Cahill’s contract allows the district to terminate Cahill’s employment with 60 days notice and payment of six months salary. Cahill had been with District 150 since 2005. The board has selected Business Manager Carla Eman as temporary Comptroller while interviews for an interim Comptroller are conducted.

I had been hearing rumors that Cahill quit instead of being fired, but I don’t believe he would get the 60 days notice or paid administrative leave if he had quit. All appearances are that he was shown the door. And since there was no comment from the school board when taking that action, it doesn’t look like we’re going to know why… unless Cahill wants to tell us.

Regular commenter “Without Malice” wins the prize for correctly predicting Carla Eman would be the temporary Treasurer while the search is on for an interim replacement. Congratulations!

Peoria Public Schools

Cahill out, but who’s in?

21 Comments

So, right after I left town for the weekend, the rumor about District 150 Controller/Treasurer Guy Cahill leaving was confirmed. Figures. It will be made official Tuesday night at the regular school board meeting. The agenda reads:

17. TERMINATION OF CONTROLLER/TREASURER CONTRACT
18. APPOINTMENT OF TEMPORARY CONTROLLER/TREASURER

So, the question is, who’s going to be filling in temporarily? School board members are tight-lipped, citing confidentiality of personnel matters.

You might be interested to know that, according to District 150’s bylaws (2:110), a school board member can serve as treasurer:

The Treasurer of the Board shall be either an elected member of the Board who serves a 1-year term or an appointed non-Board member who serves at the Board’s pleasure. A Treasurer who is a Board member may not be compensated.

I believe Jim Stowell would qualify for this position. At least in the interim, this could help the school district save money while they’re looking for a permanent replacement for Mr. Cahill, since a board member can’t be compensated, but anyone else they appoint would have to be compensated.

Peoria Public Schools

Audit shows budget errors and omissions at D150

91 Comments

Holy Toledo. I don’t generally read the Peoria Story blog, but Billy Dennis quoted a portion of this post, and it was so shocking I had to read more.

I’ve read past District 150 audit reports (available here*), and they’ve always been bad — bad enough that it makes me wonder why in the world Guy Cahill is still employed by the district. For example, here’s a note from the June 30, 2007 audit report:

In an ideal control setting, the District would have personnel possessing a thorough understanding of applicable generally accepted accounting principles staying abreast of recent accounting developments. Such personnel would perform a comprehensive review procedure to ensure that in the preparation of its annual financial statements that such statements, including disclosures, are complete and accurate.

And this:

The overall internal controls over the District’s accounting system are not adequate to ensure that misstatements caused by error or fraud, in amounts that would be material to the financial statements, may occur and not be detected within a timely period by employees in the normal course of performing their assigned functions.

That was the second year in a row the district got that last note. The 2006-07 audit was also the one that reported the district’s misallocation of over a half million dollars in Title I funds. But evidently the latest audit report takes the cake:

“The November 14, 2008 audit report, prepared by Clifton Gunderson LLP, for the 2007-08 school year, shows the District #150 administrators failed to budget $10,410,849 when budgeting for Teachers Retirement Service (TRS) pension contributions. […]

“This was not a new expense – the district has been budgeting for “on-behalf of” contributions to TRS for years. Their actual expenditure for this item during the 2006-07 school year was $7,264,468. How did they “forget” to budget over $10 million in expenditures – and revenue – for the 2007-08 school year?

“Further, how and why did the TRS provision grow over $3 million in one year? Did teacher salaries increase so much in one year that 10% of that increase amounted to $3 million?

Since the revenues and expenses for “on-behalf of” contributions to TRS effectively cancel each other out, the issue is more about transparency than anything else. If the public were to see that this fund grew by over 43% in one year, they might start asking questions — like, “why is that amount rising so dramatically?” and “what other information is the district hiding?” With omissions this great, how can we believe anything the school administration says about the budget and the need to close a high school? Incidentally, the “on-behalf-of” contributions are not on the 2008-09 budget that was submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), either.

Something I’ve always wondered is how District 150 can keep sending incomplete reports to the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). For instance, the last three years (2006-2008) of the district’s Annual Statement of Affairs (available here*) leaves required information completely blank, including salary schedules and non-salary payments over $2500. It is required by the State that the district report this information, and yet it hasn’t for multiple years, keeping taxpayers (and the State regulating agency itself) in the dark. With as many administrators and consultants as District 150 has, surely someone could be tasked with completing required reports.

These questions deserve answers. The information reported on Peoria Story has been forwarded to District officials. It will be interesting to hear their response.

*Note: If you want to look up the financial data or Statement of Affairs reports on the ISBE website, they’re listed by the district’s code number, which is 48-072-1500-25.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools

Noteworthy news links

76 Comments

Here are some news items from the Journal Star that caught my interest: