The Chicago Tribune and the Naperville Sun reported a week ago that DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett said Illinois needs state bond reform, to prevent insiders from getting business that costs taxpayers more money than competitive bidding. While the Naperville Sun said Birkett “ripped” Governor Rod Blagojevich and the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority for a non-competitively bid $700 million bond deal with Lehman Brothers, which employs John Wyma, a former congressional Chief of Staff for now Governor Rod Blagojevich - Birkett need not look to either Governor Blagojevich or the state to see problems with bond deals - we have them right here in DuPage.
The Chicago Tribune quotes Birkett saying of present bond practices, “It’s time to pull Illinois out of the swamp of corruption and on to the firm ground of accountability to taxpayers.”
The Naperville Sun quotes Birkett observing, “When bond sales occur, the insiders are never far away…. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It’s putting taxpayers in front of the line ahead of the insiders.”
Despite the latter show of bi-partisanship, Birkett was noticeably tamer when the he discussed a bonafide bond scandal in DuPage nine months ago involving Republican players. Last summer I wrote about a scandal involving Republican operative John E. Glennon getting paid twice for the same bond work in DuPage (payments DuPage County Board Chair and Glennon contribution collector Robert Schillerstrom defended at the time - although he acknowledged problems with the practice). The next day Joe Birkett, in response to the Chicago Sun-Times finding that DuPage County Auditor Jim Raisins was missing information on an additional two bonds Glennon might have gotten paid for, sounded noticeably less sanguine than last week, saying:
“If there’s been a county disbursement, certainly the records should include what that money is paid out for. [The fact that the Auditor can’t find them] is unusual, yes,” but “the fact that something may be unusual does not mean it’s criminal in nature.”
Birkett went on to say, “I’ll be watching the whole thing closely…. We haven’t yet formally opened any investigation, but the auditor certainly could request it, or I could request it on my own.”
To my knowledge Auditor Jim Raisins hasn’t yet issued his report (Eric Krol of the Daily Herald confirmed this last Sunday) - and according to one source I spoke to today, everyone may be still waiting on the federal investigation of Bear Stearns which is likely taking a look at Glennon deals, even if they aren’t the main focus. Despite the fact that Glennon’s name isn’t as prominent in the major corruption scandal involving Bear Stearns executive Nicolas Hurtgen, Vice Chair of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board Stuart Levine and construction company owner Jacob Kiferbaum doesn’t mean the taint of Glennon hasn’t had an effect locally. According to Eric Krol’s opinion piece and article in last Sunday’s Daily Herald, Glennon is one major reason why DuPage County Board Chair Robert Schillerstrom isn’t running for governor in 2006.
The bond underwriting business could use more competition nation-wide, and in Illinois neither party has done well by the taxpayers in bond sales, including Joe Birkett’s Republicans. There has been movement on cleaning up the conflicts of interest in this area. Nationally the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board recently proposed a rule to eliminate consultants, like John Glennon, because of their inflated compensation for winning government bond business, and their increasing political contributions that threaten the integrity of the process. In Illinois, there have also been some reforms, including the bipartisan FY 2005 Budget Implementation Finance Act (SB 2206), which counted both House Majority Leader Michael Madigan and House Minority Leader Tom Cross as co-sponsors and contained significant state bond bidding reforms requiring more public information and increasing competitive bond bidding. The state senate bill that Joe Birkett backs seems to be Senator Bill Brady’s SB 1806 for competitive bond bidding that would require even more bonds be made open to competitive bidding.
It’s notable how energetic the Republicans are in proposing bond reforms when they are in the minority - and not when they might have passed it themselves during Governor Jim Edgar’s or Governor George Ryan’s years, making one wonder about the GOP’s sincerity on the issue. In a similar vein, why hasn’t Joe Birkett been publicly more aggressive in his bond reform stance in DuPage County? DuPage taxpayers want to know why John Glennon was paid once for financial consulting some have said was both unnecessary and forced upon them - much less why DuPage paid Glennon twice for his work. It would be good to hear more of Joe Birkett’s righteous anger about bond dealings here, in DuPage, where he currently works.
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