Why Joliet Police Supervisors Got Mudron 5 To Oust Shanahan

JOLIET, IL — On Tuesday, June 18, four Joliet Police sergeants stood toward the back of the Joliet City Council Chambers in a show of solidarity. During the packed meeting, a question was asked whether any audience members wanted Marty Shanahan removed as Joliet's interim city manager. Only four people raised their hands. They were off-duty Joliet Police Sgt. Patrick Cardwell, Sgt. Tom Grutzius, Sgt. Dave Harris and Sgt. Larry Collins.

All are members of the Joliet Police Supervisors Association as was another member of that union, Sgt. Lindsey Heavener, who wore his uniform to the council meeting. Patch has learned that Heavener had been working the phones leading up to the June meeting, courting city council members to oust Shanahan.

Sources told Patch that Heavener is believed to have spoken to Jan Quillman, Pat Mudron, Mayor Bob O'Dekirk and Mike Turk "to get them to fire Marty Shanahan" as interim city manager.

That evening, none of the police sergeants spoke during the public comment section of the meeting. None of the City Council's Mudron 5: Pat Mudron, Mike Turk, Sherri Reardon, Don "Duck" Dickinson and Bettye Gavin, gave a valid reason for removing Shanahan after eight months in the job.

Just why did Pat Cardwell's supervisors union want Shanahan gone? Why did the Mudron Five agree to support Cardwell and not Shanahan?

One of the main issues, Joliet Patch has learned, was about money, lots of money. Money that was about to be taken away from Cardwell, Heavener and several other members of their association. Cardwell is one of the higher paid Joliet Police officials, making $153,987 in 2018 and more than $150,000 every year since 2015, city payroll records show.

Cardwell, who marked his 25th anniversary on the force July 8, should be in line for a large pension, and, potentially, a huge payout when he cashes out his unused sick, vacation and comp time banks when he retires a few more years down the road.

Documents obtained by Joliet Patch in a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that Shanahan attempted to make Cardwell and his union forfeit what appeared to be excessive amounts of unused vacation and comp time banks, far and above what their current three-year collective bargaining agreement that runs through 2022 allowed.

Shanahan, the correspondence reveals, intended to save the city of Joliet several hundred thousand dollars by wiping the overages within the Joliet Police Supervisors Association off the books. He determined that several of the highest paid people on the city's payroll were also in violation of their collective bargaining contract.

The language in the Police Supervisors Association contract allows Cardwell and others to bank up to seven weeks, which is 280 hours of pay, in unused vacation. Secondly, their contract allows them to accrue up to twelve weeks, which is 480 hours of pay, in unused comp time. When they leave the city, they also get paid out for their unused sick leave banks, but the sick leave payouts were not an issue of concern for Shanahan.

Although the contract language appears straightforward, past city managers such as Tom Thanas, Jim Hock and David Hales, chose to turn a blind eye to the details of the Joliet Police Supervisors contract. As a result, past city managers did not address the overages when Joliet Police officials were retiring.

Since 2017, Joliet Patch has been chronicling the staggering six-figure retirement payouts for several city officials, mostly in the Joliet Police Department. Patch wrote exclusive articles about former Chief Brian Benton, Deputy Chief Tab Jensen, Deputy Chief Brian Dupuis and Edgar Gregory all getting payouts of between $109,000 and $131,000 in addition to their starting Joliet Police pensions that are all in excess of $100,000.

Under the terms of their contract, Cardwell's bargaining unit is entitled to cash out its unused vacation, sick leave and comp time banks at their final rate of pay — not the rate of pay they made when they were squirreling away excessive vacation and excessive comp time amounts.

In effect, these police officials likely stand to make tens of thousands more than their unused vacation and unused comp time banks were worth when earned.

Back in January, the Joliet City Council approved a new three-year contract with Cardwell's union that grants them a 7-percent pay raise this coming January. The raise gave them a 2 percent cost of living increase plus a 5-percent raise for allowing the city to phase out and not replace the four police captain positions once the current members retire.

In 2021 and 2022, Cardwell's union will also get 2 percent pay increases as well. So you can see perhaps why Cardwell became irate upon learning that Shanahan intended to enforce the terms of the new contract, targeting their overages for excessive vacation and comp time.

The fireworks began flying in mid-March, Joliet Patch determined.

"Today I received your memo regarding our overages for vacation and comp time," Cardwell wrote Shanahan in an email. "We have always attended meetings in the past with the two previous city managers and now with you on addressing these issues ... The message our members received after your February meeting was this vac/comp time issue didn't happen overnight and it's not gonna be solved overnight.

"We have not neglected your attempts on solving these overages, but it appears to my board that your memo is retaliatory in nature ... I'll forward this memo to our FOP attorneys and hopefully reasonableness will prevail."

Shanahan also provided Cardwell with a spreadsheet identifying all the Joliet Police Supervisors who were in violation of their own contract, by stockpiling too much unused vacation or too much comp time, or both.

As of mid-March, according to the documents, the biggest vacation abusers in Cardwell's management union included:

1. Matt Breen, 1,092.8 hours of unused vacation, vice president of union
2. Lindsey Heavener 989.37 hours
3. Rich Demick, 921.58 hours
4. Tom Grutzius 778.30 hours
5. Bob Desiderio 743.80 hours, executive board member in union
6. Patrick Cardwell 684.62 hours, union president
7. John Stefanski 638.43 hours
8. Joe Rosado 607.45 hours

As of mid-March, the biggest abusers of the comp time issue included:

1. Matt Breen, 670.90 hours of comp time
2. Tom Grutzius, 660.37 hours
3. Moises Avila, 620.97 hours
4. Sherrie Blackburn 558.08 hours
5. Andrew Jose, 538.35 hours
6. John Stefanski, 525.90 hours
7. Les O'Connor 522.58 hours
8. Gregory Jordan 522 hours

The following is a two-page letter Shanahan sent to Cardwell in March, three months prior to his eventual ouster as city manager by the Mudron Five.

Here were the documents that Supervisors Association President Cardwell got from Shanahan revealing that supervisors, including himself, were in violation of their own contract terms. More importantly, Shanahan planned to make them forfeit their excessive overages of vacation and comp time, which would have cost several of them tens of thousands of dollars, but saved the city at the same time.

VACATION OVERAGE, what it's worth based on 2019 salaries:

COMP TIME overages, what it's worth based on 2019 salaries:

In the weeks leading up to the Mudron Five all emailing Shanahan on the night of June 13 asking that he put an item on the city council agenda, seeking a vote on his removal as interim city manager, Sgt. Cardwell made it clear that his union opposed Shanahan's attempts to enforce the terms of the FOP contract regarding the excessive vacation and excessive comp time.

From there, Shanahan indicated to the FOP Supervisors that prior to taking any action to enforce the contract regarding the forfeiting of their vacation and comp time overages, he planned to provide them with prior notice. Cardwell's police supervisors group consists of roughly 50 to 55 members. About half of them don't even live in the city limits of Joliet.

Fast-forward to the night of Tuesday, June 18. Cardwell and several fellow police supervisors showed up at the city council meeting and watched with satisfaction as Councilmen Mike Turk and Pat Mudron made the motion "to relieve Martin J. Shanahan of his duties" effective immediately as interim city manager.

The pair had already garnered the support from Don "Duck" Dickinson, Bettye Gavin and newly elected Sherri Reardon.

Next week, the city council may take a vote on approving a new contract with Jim Hock, bringing him out of retirement from the state of Michigan to serve as interim city manager, likely for the remainder of the year, if not longer.

Hock, during his time as city manager from 2014 through April 2017, took no action against Cardwell's bargaining unit to address their excessive vacation and comp time banks.

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