Only two weeks ago we wrote our first-ever post about the Bizarro World of Maine Township government where (with apologies to Ray Davies and his iconic “Lola”): “Rs will be Ds and Ds will be Rs, it’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world” that, at least here in Illinois, Tribune columnist John Kass has dubbed “The Combine.”
The Combine is populated by politicians like Maine Twp. Supervisor Laura Morask and Assessor Susan Moylan-Krey, two RINOs who support more-and-bigger Township government.
Recently they and their questionable (if not outright profligate) style of government have been challenged for the first time by new trustees Dave Carrabotta, Claire McKenzie and Susan Sweeney, whom we’ve dubbed, collectively, “The Reformers” because they have refused to mindlessly rubber-stamp whatever Morask, Moylan-Krey and the other Township officials shove in front of them.
For example, at the August 22, 2017 Township Board meeting they refused to certify that the Township Assessor position required at least 1,000 hours of work per year, thereby entitling Moylan-Krey to continued participation in the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (“IMRF”) pension program. For those of you who may not have been paying attention, the IMRF is one of those Cadillac public-sector pension plans whose defined benefits are guaranteed by Illinois taxpayers because of a sweetheart provision inserted into the Illinois constitution in 1970.
Moylan-Krey stated under oath that the Assessor’s position required 1,000 hours of work. That’s an average of 20 hours/week for 50 weeks a year, assuming two weeks of vacation. In typically non-transparent, unaccountable Illinois bureaucrat fashion, however, she failed to supply any evidence of why 1,000 hours were needed for that position.
Why shouldn’t The Reformers have trusted her sworn statement?
Let’s start with the fact that the Maine Township Assessor does not appear to actually “assess” anything. As we understand it, all property assessments in Maine Township are done by the County Assessor.
If Moylan-Krey doesn’t do any assessing, what exactly are her job functions, and those of her office?
According to the Assessor’s profile on the Maine Township website: “The main role of the Assessor’s office is to serve our residents.” Seriously, it really says that – which is why we embedded it so you could see for yourself, before they change it.
Have you ever seen a more disingenuously nebulous description of what a bunch of bureaucrats do than “serve our residents”? We know we haven’t, and we’ve been paying attention for quite a long time.
But, as legendary t.v. pitchman Ron Popeil might say: There’s more!
In addition to Moylan-Krey, the Township – meaning we, the Township taxpayers – employs at least four other folks with the title of “Deputy Assessor,” according to the Maine Township Staff Directory. That sure seems like a lot of payrollers in an Assessor’s office that does no assessing.
And it gets even better – or worse, depending on your perspective.
Although Moylan-Krey claims that the Assessor’s position that does no assessing requires at least 1,000 hours of work (Remember: 20 hours/week for 50 weeks), and that she personally puts in more than 1,000 hours a year, Moylan-Krey’s “Personal Profile” on the Century 21 Langos & Christian website trumpets her as “a full time real estate professional…fully committed to serving the needs and interests of both sellers and buyers in all aspects of residential real estate.”
So even though Assessor Moylan-Krey doesn’t do any assessing, Broker Moylan-Krey apparently does sell real estate, full time.
Does Century 21 Langos & Christian have a defined-benefit pension plan as good as, or better than, the Township’s IMRF plan? We highly doubt it, which might explain why Moylan-Krey – with the rock-solid backing of Morask – is fighting tooth and nail to have the IMRF over-ride The Reformers’ refusal to certify the non-assessing Assessor’s position as requiring 1,000 hours of annual work.
We’ll tell you more about that IMRF battle in our next post.
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10 comments so far
It sounds as if the entire Maine Twp. Assessor’s office is one big featherbedding operation. That is really ridiculous.
EDITOR’S NOTE: And the office appears to have operated this same way before Moylan-Krey was appointed in 2014, prior to her election to it last April.
Typical corrupt Illinois politics set up for the politicians, not the rest of us. Just like Morask giving unsuccessful trustee candidate a township job until it was disclosed and people complained.
Your “Reformers” just want to disband township government and harm the needy in the process. And that’s all you have wanted, Trizna, like you did at the Park Ridge Library.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The only way to “disband” Maine Township government is by a referendum vote of the voters within the Township, not by anything The Reformers do. And by rousting out waste and inefficiency – like paying $900K of taxpayer money to distribute less than $200K of benefits to the needy – they are doing MORE for the Township’s mission than Morask, et al.
As for what this editor did while on the Park Ridge Library Board from 2011-2017, if you are referring to (1) leading efforts to make the director more accountable for the Library’s performance, or (2) leading the fight for re-opening on summer Sundays in 2014 after the director and her Board majority closed it for purely political reasons, or (3) arguing for longer hours on Sundays, or (4) helping persuade the City Council to put a multi-million dollar referendum on the November 2014 ballot to restore services cut by the director and her Board majority for purely political reasons, or (5) leading the effort to get Board meeting packets published on the Library’s website so that the taxpayers could review them in advance of the meetings, or (6) helping get meetings relocated to City Hall that can accommodate more attendees, or (7) leading the effort to have meetings videotaped and posted on the Library’s website, or (8) initiating the discussion of a Library renovation, or (9) leading the effort to end the practice of tutors running their private, profit-making businesses out of the Library for free, or (10) leading the campaign to force parasitic non-residents to pay for computer usage and program attendance – he is proudly GUILTY of all those things.
I worked for the City of Chicago for just over 5 years under the Richie Daley administration, and even his cronies didn’t have the nerve to write up job descriptions like the one for the Maine Twp. Assessor’s office. How arrogant they must be, and how dumb they must think we are.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Don’t look now, but we have been dumb for all the years that the Assessor’s office has been described that way, and avoided any sort of scrutiny.
Moylan-Krey’s hoped for pilot program to help senior’s pay for unpaid property tax would fall under her job description.
She claims in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate article “Maine Township trustees question proposal to use government funds to pay seniors’ delinquent tax bills” that a possible tax rebate “…would also cost the township money to do it, and would be a burden on staff.”
BUt overtaxing and then handing the surplus out at her discretion isn’t a burden? It’s ideas like this that will lead to even higher taxes and a reason more of these seniors will probably be unable to afford to live in their
homes.
Weren’t Carrabotta and Sweeney on the same ticket with Morask and Moylan-Krey? So they were all in the same stew until after they get elected, then Carrabotta and Sweeney defect and join the Democrat McKenzie.
From what you wrote I support The Reformers, but what kind of judgment was Carrabotta and Sweeney exercising in running with the others that they are no feuding with?
EDITOR’S NOTE: The slating was a puzzlement to us.
The Assessor’s position and the whole office sounds like just a make-work program. How much are we paying for the non-Assessor and her staff?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Based on what we could find out from OpenTheBooks.com – https://www.openthebooks.com/search/?PensionCode=1804&F_fiscalyear=2016&F_employernm=Maine%20Township&F_employeenm=
– we calculated over $200,000 for Moylan-Krey and the other four deputy assessors listed for her office. Whether there is any clerical staff for that office we cannot say.
Don’t we have private charities that do, or easily could do, what the Township does if they had the Township’s money? At the very least, the Township could outsource most of its services to those charities.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We believe there are private charities that already do some/much of what the Township does. The problem we’ve seen with that in the past, however, is that none of those private charities want the kind of scrutiny and accountability to which the taxpayers are entitled from the Township (or the City, School Districts, Park District, etc.) – even if the taxpayers don’t always get it from those gov’t bodies.
The Moylan-Provenzano-Warner-Teschky Combine is still alive and well at Maine Township.
Neighborhood code 150 in Maine Township hit hard by airplane noise is not on the assessor map of Park Ridge. Taxes are going up 38% with no statistics listed. Property is selling $100,000 less than original asking price.
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