Mayor gave city employee a pay advance
Ford OK’d nearly $17K for transportation manager, a former alderman, without City Council approval
Country Club Hills Mayor James Ford approved a $16,817 payroll advance to the city’s transportation manager, a former alderman, records obtained by the Daily Southtown show.
Ford characterized his decision to sign off on the advance last year to Victor Watts as a compassionate gesture for a longtime city worker.
But some City Council members said they were in the dark about the advance and considered it a breach of taxpayer trust that unfairly benefited one of the mayor’s political allies.
Ald. Lisa Evans said she considered the advance a clear misappropriation of city funds that amounted to fraud.
At her behest, the board’s legislative attorney recently looked into the matter and concluded that the mayor’s actions were a clear use of public funds for a private purpose — a violation of the Illinois Constitution and possibly a criminal offense — according to a memo she penned.
“It is recommended that the City Council consider adopting a resolution stating that Mayor Ford’s expenditure was not for a public purpose and condemning the use of public funds for a private purpose,” memo said. “It is also recommended that this matter be referred to the State’s Attorney.”
A spokeswoman for the state’s attorney said she could not confirm or deny whether the office was investigating the issue.
Ford said he knew of no federal lawthat forbade him from providing an employee a payroll advance as long as the city eventually recouped the funds through future payroll deductions.
“I know some major corporations that do that for employees,” said Ford, a retired project manager at IBM and Army veteran. “In
“I know some major corporations that do that for employees. In fact, the military does that all the time.” — James Ford, mayor of Country Club Hills
fact, the military does that all the time.”
He said Watts approached him about the advance last year.
“He requested an advance on his salary and I granted that grant because of the fact that I care about the employee and I care about all employees,” Ford said. “And because this employee was having some issues with paying medical bills for his son who was dying from cancer, (who) has lately passed away, I was able to abort him losing his home and the family getting placed out of the home.”
Of the $16,817.13 advanced to Watts last May, he received $10,500 in takehome pay, payroll records show. The city held on to the remaining $6,317.13, which had been designated for taxes and pension deductions, because the loan was repaid within three months, Ford said.
For the next six pay periods, $500was deducted from his biweekly paychecks, for a total of $3,000, records show. On the same day as the sixth deduction last August, Ford wrote the city a personal check for $7,500 to cover the remainder of the advance balance, records show.
He said the city’s finance secretary subsequently adjusted Watts’ pay and tax forms to ensure they did not reflect a higher income at year’s end than they would have had he not received an advance. As a result, the tax
portion of the advance did not end up costing the city any money, Ford said.
“We don’t owe the city any money for pensions or taxes or anything,” he said.
When reached for comment, Watts confirmed he had an agreement with the mayor but said he didn’t wish to discuss it. The former 4thWard alderman, who served from 1996 to 2009, made $45,589 as transportation manager in charge of maintenance on the city’s vehicle fleets, according to 2017 payroll records.
In retrospect, Ford said he wished he had not providedWatts an advance and would not do so for any employees in the future.
“If I had to do it again, I probablywouldn’t do it that way,” he saidWednesday. “I would just go ahead and write the check, the whole check, to the employee. Because that would have been smoother.”
“But,” Ford added, “the bottom line is that this advance was paid back on Aug. 31, 2018. So it’s not like the city lost money. The money was granted to the employee under my leadership. We, in turn, paid it back to the city, and it’s no longer on the books.”
Evans said the mayor’s explanation and justification for his actionswere not acceptableandheneededto be held accountable.
“We’re not a corporation, and we’re not the military. We’re a municipality that operates on taxpayer money,” she said.“Themoneyhe took out came directly out of the general fund, all taxpayer’s money. It was interest-free, and he did it without board approval. The fact that he didn’t seek board approval and he did it behind the scenes lets us knowitwas wrong.”
Ben Silver, a lawyer for the Citizen Advocacy Center, a governmentwatchdog organization, said he was glad the case had been referred to the state’s attorney’s office because it deserved the attention of an outside agency.
He said public officials always need to exercise care when spending public funds for any reason and that in this case residents were owed a full financial accounting of the mayor’s transactions to ensure that no city funds were lost or misspent.
Silver said that when assessing the transaction it was important to ask if the city had a formal policy in place for offering employees payroll advances and whether the employee who received the advance had received special treatment.
Evans assertedWatts had received preferential treatment because he was the mayor’s political ally.
Ford acknowledged that Watts was a political supporter he’d knownfor many years— in fact, years ago, he was the mayor’s alderman — but he characterized him as “just another colleague” and denied he’d given him special treatment.
“I look at helping people in general. I don’t try to do special favors for people,” Ford said. “Inmy position, I have to make sure that there’s a certain amount of integrity that comes out of this office. So I can’t just say I’m going to do this for him and not for others. I try to spread it across the board.”
Ford said he has often used his personal money to help private sector employees over the years, but had only used citymoneyonthis lone occasion because Watts had specifically requested a payroll advance.
He said he hoped his assistance had allowed Watts to stabilize his financial situation, but that he would not bail him out again if he continued to experience financial difficulties.
“He’ll have to resort to some other resources because I can’t do anything else for him at this point in time,” the mayor said.
Ford said he believed the issue, which became political fodder during the recent mayoral race, was clearly politically motivated.
“I just think that it was unfortunate that this came up at the time that it did,” said Ford, who appears to have prevailed Tuesday in his reelection bid against two challengers, according to unofficial results. “I realize that perhaps this could have been handled in a differentway, and if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t do it the way that it happened this time.
“But I’m just really concerned that this came up at this time, during the election, along with so many other things that came up thatwere not true.”
Ford said he had asked his public safety director to investigate the internal leak of confidential employee documents that sparked the discussion of the payroll advance and said the investigationwas ongoing.
He said the public safety director told employees there would be consequences for leaking private information to the public, but that he did not knowyet whether any employee implicated in the leaking the informationwould be disciplined internally or charged with a crime.
“It all depends on the severity of what we find,” Ford said.