Former Carpentersville Village Manager Mark Rooney has sued the village for breach of contract.
The lawsuit, filed June 20 in Kane County Circuit Court, charges that village officials characterized Rooney’s termination “as a voluntary resignation to evade its obligations to pay severance.”
In January, the Carpentersville Village Board approved a proposed separation agreement with Rooney, who was hired as village manager in 2010. The deal was later withdrawn when Rooney stopped coming to work, village officials said.
“The village’s position was that it is not acceptable for any employee to just stop showing up to work and still expect to keep their job, and the village policy provides that any employee who fails to report to work for multiple days has constructively resigned their position,” Village Attorney Brad Stewart said.
According to Rooney’s employment contract, the village was required to continue paying Rooney’s $176,710 salary, plus benefits and unused vacation time, for nine months if he were fired after five years. The contract also stated that were Rooney to resign at the request of the Village Board, he would considered terminated and eligible to receive severance compensation.
Rooney is seeking compensatory damages in excess of $217,000, according to the suit.
Stewart said the Village Board “believes it is its fiscal responsibility to not just pay out nearly seven times its working taxpayers’ annual income to reward an employee for not working.”
The complaint states that Village President John Skillman, formerly Carpentersville’s fire chief, “was determined to terminate” Rooney after he was sworn into office in May 2017. Several instances are cited in the suit in which Skillman allegedly told Rooney he planned to fire him.
Skillman denied the allegations.
“I definitely never said that,” he said. “That was not said to him by me or any of the board members.”
While still fire chief, Skillman underwent a disciplinary interrogation in 2016 and was offered an opportunity by Rooney to retire in lieu of termination, which he accepted, according to the suit. Last December, when two Village Board members resigned or died, Skillman appointed “his allies” as replacements in order achieve a board majority, the suit charges.
Skillman said Rooney knew the board was interested in finding a new village manager because he was told in employment meetings held in December and January. He is now trying to recast events, the mayor said.
“This whole complaint is he’s trying to paint a picture that he was retaliated against,” Skillman said. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Several proposed separation agreements were offered to Rooney, but he declined them because they did not include the full severance he was contractually entitled to, the suit said.
On Jan. 6, the village and Rooney agreed he would be placed on involuntary leave and paid through accrued benefit time while negotiations on a separation agreement continued. When they weren’t able reach a settlement, the board withdrew the last separation agreement offer made and voted Jan. 24 to accept Rooney’s voluntary resignation, effective Jan. 5, the date on which Rooney cleared out his office and stopped coming to work.
The lawsuit charges that action “was based upon a fiction that he had resigned. … In reality, the village terminated Mr. Rooney’s employment without cause.”
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The next scheduled court date for the case is Sept. 5.