A yearlong schedule in which Naperville School District 203 board members take turns reviewing its monthly bills was released this week, but one board member said she would “respectfully decline to sign off on the expenditures.”
Board member Melissa Kelley Black on Monday criticized the district’s handling of the bills and claims review process, leading others to say she was shirking her board duties by refusing to participate in the monthly oversight for over two years.
This is at least the second time this year Kelley Black has been publicly rebuked for failing to provide oversight into bills and claims. In January, Kelley Black was called out for failing to review the bills when she was scheduled to do so. The rebuff came just weeks after Kelley Black was censured for unprofessional conduct detrimental to the district, which she has denied.
Charles Cush, the School Board president, said board members take turns sitting down with the finance department’s team to review the bills each month. The responsibility is rotated among board members, and the schedule comes out each August.
“This is part of our shared responsibilities as board members,” Cush said.
Newly elected board members have an opportunity to shadow longer-serving board members, who are already used to the practice. New board members can then take the lead reviewing bills with an older board member mentoring them.
Kelley Black said she believes the bills and claims review process is fraught with errors and does not provide the necessary information to verify how public dollars are being spent.
“I cannot in good conscience approve and review financial claims without the proper documentation and controls that allow for meaningful oversight,” Kelley Black said.
Superintendent Dan Bridges said the district’s process is compliant with Illinois Association of School Board regulations and the district has maintained the highest financial rating by the state.
Board vice president Kristine Gericke said the board’s attorney has agreed the process is correct.
Cush said Kelley Black has been on the board 26 months and other board members have substituted for her when she was supposed to take the reins reviewing bills and claims.
“You’ve not done this responsibility at all,” Cush said during Monday’s School Board meeting. “You talk about fiduciary responsibility. It does not get any more fiduciary than looking at every single one of the roughly $30 million we spend.”
“It’s a responsibility that you’ve walked away from,” he said. “At the end of the day, you owe it to the community to take a look at the dollars. … You should at least step up to the plate and actually do the job of looking at the bills and claims before you disparage the process and before you throw up some false, nonsensical legal argument.”
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Board member Amanda McMillen said she disagrees with Kelley Black’s claims. She said the district’s finance department allows the board members to “look into the weeds” and perform their own audit. Any belief that reviewing bills and claims puts a single board member in legal jeopardy is false since the board operates as a unit, McMillen said.
McMillen said examining the bills and claims makes her better at her fiduciary oversight.
“I respect the current process,” she said.
Marc Willensky, who was elected in April, said his first time shadowing a board member was “a fantastic opportunity to understand how the district does business.”
The board can ask questions of the finance staff about how money is spent, Willensky said.
“We’re not doing the actual accounting for these expenses, but this does give the board an opportunity to have oversight and evaluate how are the controls operating and do the expenses that we see coming through make sense for the district,” he said.
Michelle Mullins is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.