Former D-181 Leader Upset Over Tax issue

HINSDALE, IL — On Feb. 10, William Merchantz, the president of the Hinsdale-based District 181 school board, missed a board meeting, as planned. One day later, he resigned, letting the district know in a one-sentence letter: "I submit my resignation from the D181 Board effective Tuesday, February 11, 2020." And that was it. He gave no reason.

He has declined to explain his departure to other media outlets that have contacted him. Patch has been unable to reach him, but it filed a public records request for Merchantz's emails to Superintendent Hector Garcia in his last week as president. If the emails are any indication, he seemed frustrated.

On Feb. 5, Merchantz emailed Garcia and asked that the board delay a vote on property tax abatement until March. He said he would be unable to attend the Feb. 10 board meeting.

Later that same day, he emailed both Garcia and fellow board member Nathan Lucht. In that email, he complained that the district's chief financial officer, Mohsin Dada, had again "overloaded the FinCom agenda" for a Feb. 6 meeting. He said Dada included the administration's five-year tax abatement strategy for the meeting, but not the one Merchantz drafted and asked for Lucht to include on the finance committee agenda.

"Dada overcomplicates the story to achieve his goal: maximize the property tax levy," Merchantz said in the email. "Is it not too late to ask how much property tax is enough?"

Merchantz said the projected budget surplus for the next budget year would be $4 million.

"How much is enough? Hope I can ask the question and hope administration has a good story," he said in the email.

According to the Hinsdalean newspaper's account of the Feb. 6 finance committee meeting, Merchantz asked about the reason for the urgency to vote in February on the amount of the proposed property tax abatement. He said he understood the board had until March to do so.

At the Feb. 10 meeting, the board unanimously approved the tax abatement proposal in Merchantz's absence, despite his request for a delay.

In an email to Patch on Friday, Garcia said this year's surplus was the result of improved revenues and reduced expenditures. On the revenue side, he said, the district saw significant hikes in interest earnings and donations from the community and parent-teacher organizations. For expenditures, the district did not fill all of its vacant positions, cut spending because of retiring staff and experienced savings in medical insurance claims, he said.

"Significantly improved financial results does not mean the school district under-levies for the following year," Garcia said in an email. "Our goal as a district is to ensure fiscal stability and appropriate resources for programming and facilities. We continue to stay informed about potential state and federal impacts on funding, and represent district needs and community expectations where possible."

He said the district also must consider that expenditures for nonsalaried employees are at a historical low and that those expenditures will likely be increased at a rate higher than the consumer priced index, Garcia said.

In September 2018, Merchantz was appointed to fill a school board vacancy. He was elected to the board last April and was appointed its president. In Illinois, school board members are unpaid.

Patch tried to contact Merchantz, but could not find his phone number. The secretary of state's website shows he registered Lakeview Asset Management LLC as his business in 2012.

Patch called the number on the Lakeview Asset Management LLC website. Scott Rothbort, the firm's president, answered and said Merchantz had nothing to do with the business. Rothbort, who has appeared on CNBC, Fox Business and other programs, said he had been trying for years to get Merchantz to stop using the Lakeview name. A federal database shows Rothbort got the federal copyright for his business in 2008. The only difference between Rothbort and Merchantz's business names is that Rothbort capitalizes the "v" in Lakeview.

Patch also found that Merchantz is president of the Merchantz Family Foundation. The foundation had about $6 million in assets in 2018. According to online tax records, it gives hundreds of thousands to nonprofit organizations, many of them religious. The foundation's number is listed on the group's tax forms. Patch left a message for Merchantz with a woman who answered the phone. The message wasn't returned.

Rothbort said he has received complaints from people who are upset with the political contributions that Merchantz makes in Lakeview's name. In 2016, Merchantz, listing himself as chief executive of Lakeview, donated $50,000 to then-Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan's political action committee. That same year, he contributed $50,000 to Donald Trump's campaign, but that wasn't done in Lakeview's name. For that contribution, Merchantz listed his occupation as retired.

Merchantz co-founded Whittman-Hart, a technology company, in Chicago in 1984. For years after that, Merchantz owned another business called Lakeview Technology.