La Grange Entities' Rocky Relationship Continues

LA GRANGE, IL — Lyons Township High School's North Campus and the Lyons Township Treasurer's Office are nine blocks apart.

But they could be an ocean away from each other when it comes to their relationship. At one point, a gift of books was rejected, with a chastising letter from an attorney.

In May, a state judge allowed the high school to separate from the treasurer's office after an eight-year legal battle. The office is an agency that handles the finances for area school districts. A few years ago, a former treasurer was convicted of stealing $1.5 million from the agency.

In correspondence over the summer, the high school has been asking for the status of $6 million that the school says the office is withholding.

"They have refused to release the $6 million," school spokeswoman Jennifer Bialobok said in an interview Tuesday.

Through a public records request, Patch obtained correspondence between the school and the treasurer's office.

On July 1, Brian Waterman, formerly the school's principal, became the superintendent, taking the reins from the retiring Tim Kilrea. On Aug 12, Waterman wrote Treasurer Ken Getty, saying the school had yet to get an answer on the process of withdrawing from the treasurer's office. He proposed a meeting between the two entities.

Getty said his team's first available day was Sept. 8, nearly a month later. A meeting was set up for Sept. 9 at the school's North Campus.

One day before the meeting, Waterman asked Getty in an email to confirm the treasurer's office would attend. At the exact same minute, Getty emailed Waterman, saying his team would not show up.

In the email, Getty said he was suffering from COVID-19 symptoms, which had worsened overnight. He said he was quarantining until he got a negative test result.

Getty indicated he wanted no meeting with the teams outside an open meeting of the treasurer's office board of trustees. He said such a venue would be better given that Waterman threatened potential legal action against the treasurer's office in a letter to other school superintendents.

Getty invited Waterman to a board meeting on Sept. 13. Waterman couldn't make that meeting because the school board was meeting at the same time.

But Bialobok, the spokeswoman, said Waterman would attend the treasurer's board's meeting this week, when the office is expected to give a presentation on the withdrawal process.

In his Sept. 8 email, Getty said he was trying to promote cooperation between the two entities. On June 1, he said, he gave the book, "Think Again," by Adam Grant to the Lyons Township High School and treasurer's office boards. He accompanied the book with a handwritten note to members.

"My stated goal was to foster meaningful cooperation between both Boards, hoping to break the mold of the previous eight years by encouraging our entities to come together as neighbors/community members, instead of litigants," Getty said.

He said he was encouraged when the treasurer's office board requested to open the lines of communication and when a school board member called to thank him for the gift and promised to read it.

A day later, Getty said he received a package with a letter from Lyons Township High School's lawyer instructing him to "refrain from communicating with the Board members directly." The package included all seven books delivered to the board.

Two days after that instruction, Getty said the school sent an email blast to the community urging recipients to directly communicate with the treasurer's office board's members directly. He said that direction to the public was "incongruous" with the attorney's instruction to him.

On July 1, the treasurer's office's board transferred nearly $42 million to the high school. In the Sept. 8 email, Getty said he also transferred $6 million into two interest-bearing money market accounts to facilitate a 90-day period that would cover any unreconciled or unanticipated activity. This was done in accordance with state law, he said. The school was already told about this in letters on June 28 and June 30, he said.

"Both of our business office staffs have maintained courteous, professional (relations) and remained in constant communication since July 1, 2021," Getty said.

The litigation between the entities started when the treasurer's office was mired in scandal. In 2015, the disgraced former treasurer, Robert Healy, was convicted of stealing $1.5 million in school money and sentenced to nine years in prison for the theft.

In the litigation, Lyons Township High School contended the treasurer's office's board refused to conduct forensic audits in 2012 and 2013 when Healy's issues started coming to light.

In Patch's one interview with Getty in early June, he said he did not know why the treasurer's office board declined to conduct a forensic audit. He became treasurer in 2018.

Getty and Mike Thiessen, president of the treasurer's office's board, have not returned messages for comment.

The treasurer's office serves school districts in La Grange, Western Springs and Burr Ridge, among other towns.