Lyons Township High Less Open On Finances Than Other Schools

LA GRANGE, IL – In 2022, Lyons Township High School board members wanted to keep their hiring of a couple of consultants out of the public eye for as long as possible.

And they succeeded.

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Over the years, Lyons Township High School has been less open with its finances than other area school districts.

On its monthly agenda, the board includes an item for approval of the "payment of bills within various funds."

But the agenda document provided to the public only gives the total spending from the district's major accounts. It gives no details on which companies are getting the money.

This is unlike many other districts that provide detailed information in their public agendas on the recipients of taxpayers' money.

Those school systems include Hinsdale High School District 86 and Elmhurst School District 205.

Patch filed a public records request for any detailed information that Lyons Township High School board members received related to the agenda item that the public doesn't see. The high school indicated that board members get nothing more.

Asked about this, board President Tim Albores said the monthly list of bills and paid invoices is on the business office's page of the school's website.

He referred to the website's statement that the "accounting and financial reporting practices are open to review by any member of the public."

Albores was right that the monthly list of bills is on the website, but it's only for the latest month. Once a new month's list is posted, it pushes out the previous month.

The website also includes the "Annual Statement of Affairs," which lists what each company receives. The statement for 2024-25 is online, but when a new one is posted, the old statement is removed.

The board's practice appears to contradict its own policy. Under the policy, the administration must provide a list of bills, including vendor names and amounts, and present it to the board for approval every month. By the school's own account, it does not give such details in the board's agenda.

The lack of openness has a history.

During closed meetings in 2022, the board agreed to hire a demographer and a public relations firm. They were to help in the effort to sell the school's land in Willow Springs, which members expected to draw neighbors' opposition.

The board wanted the demographer to conduct an enrollment study, designed to counter arguments that the school still needed the vacant land.

In a May 2022 meeting, board members said they feared residents would interpret a public vote to hire the demographer, John Kasarda, as a signal that the school was preparing to sell the land.

Superintendent Brian Waterman suggested the board give its "verbal authorization" to hire the demographer, rather than vote on it publicly.

"My concern is that that would draw some attention to it," Waterman said.

Board members agreed.

Then-member Dawn Aubert said she was against involving any of the local elementary school districts in the study.

"It will raise more attention," she said.

The board saw the first draft of Kasarda's report in August 2022. But the report wasn't discussed in public until mid-December, a couple of weeks after the school announced it wanted to sell the land.

The board never meant for the closed session discussions to become public.

But as members predicted, the neighboring community was upset with the plan to sell the land to industrial users. Residents noted the property was next to an elementary school and houses.

They also complained about the closed meetings to the attorney general's office, which found the board repeatedly broke the state's open meetings law. The board then released the recordings.

Albores, the board's president, did not answer Patch's questions about the secrecy surrounding the consultant hirings. He was not on the board at the time.