ESL schools and city spending off the chain
By James Ingram
Columnist
East St. Louis Financial Advisory Authority chairman Katie Wright recently described herself as being “cussing mad” over the inability of Mayor Alvin Parks Jr. and ESL officials to simply submit a balanced budget for 2010.
Any intelligent ESL resident should feel the same way, especially given the fact the East Boogie is nearly seven months late in doing so.
Then, to further boost city morale, ESL officials are still insisting on hiring a police chief at $90,000 per year, despite across the board pay cuts for all current city employees (including police and firemen).
That will surely give Dr. Wright something else to “cuss” about since the FAA would have to approve the contract for the new police chief.
Tied for first place in the “too dumb for words” category is ESL School District 189, exposed recently in the Belleville News-Democrat for spending over $2 million in federal education dollars to hire consultants, tutors and speakers, most being political cronies and many being hired in non-essential capacities.
I first broke this story in The American, back in September 2009, when I exposed a $200,000 contract given to cable TV host and Illinois Department of Transportation contract compliance coordinator Lee Coleman (LAC and Associates, LLC) to perform “media services” for the district.
I revealed that LAC and Associates consisted of Coleman, his wife and children, and that District 189 already employs Douglas Clark (at over $60,000 per year) as their PR guy.
Now, the News-Democrat has exposed that over 100 “CON-sultants” have been hired over the past six years, at taxpayer’s expense.
For instance, Nick Mance of the Mance Leahy Group (an accounting firm), who is chairman of the Southwestern Illinois College board, received a fat $500,000 contract (over five years) to “identify wasteful spending”.
Yet, Mr. Mance was totally oblivious to the existence of all of these “CON-sultant” hook-ups. Ineptitude or convenient ignorance?
Now I’m no financial expert, but I think the first place that Mr. Mance should have looked for waste was his OWN contract!
Another example of a flagrant hook-up was the $35 per hour “library media” advising job handed to Faye Tharp, the sister of former ESL Mayor Gordon Bush.
When asked, Tharp didn’t even know the name of her supervisor. That makes perfect sense if you never advised anyone or did any work.
Stan Mims (former interim superintendent) landed a juicy $300,000 contract as a so-called “principal coach,” an interesting job especially when we know that ESL High School was reported (last year) as having 11th graders reading on third grade level.
If Mims were evaluated in the same way that NFL and NBA coaches are scored, then it’s safe to say that he would have been FIRED by now.
Unfortunately, the list goes on and on and reads like a virtual “who’s who” of ESL cronyism, nepotism, hustlers and bloodsuckers of ESL tax dollars.
To be kind, it’s nauseating. To be fair, it is reprehensible and if the taxpayers of ESL REALLY knew (or cared) about the extent to which their city and school board is being flagrantly mismanaged, they would wreak havoc on City Hall and the school board.
When ESL taxpayers finally become “cussing mad,” we will have arrived at that day.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com.