Controversy entangles Rutland Township … again

RUTLAND TOWNSIHP – Rutland Township government continues to function on controversy and divisive behavior, instead of teamwork and unity.

The years 2016 and 2017 brought controversies about the handling of nominating petitions and an attempt to knock a long-time incumbent leader off the ballot in last year’s election. Last week, another dustup erupted, involving an alleged failure to process property tax assessments in a timely fashion and/or according to state law.

The Sun Day spoke to four current and former township officials about the assessment issue last week, and got three dramatically opposing responses. The four are current township assessor Gary Fritz, former assessor Jan Siers, current and recently re-elected supervisor Margaret Sanders, and former supervisor and township board member Fred Bulmahn. Fritz, Sanders, and Bulmahn are all Sun City residents.

Fritz defeated incumbent Siers by more than 450 votes in the 2017 contest for assessor. Fritz took over the office on January l of this year. Siers was the township’s assessor for 20 years.

At the township’s annual meeting on April 11, Fritz devoted most of his speaking time to the missing assessments problem.

“When I started my term on January 1, I noticed a discrepancy in some of the assessment activities. A total of 83 properties that were built, sold, and occupied between July and October of last year were omitted from the year-end tax rolls in Kane County and Rutland Township. The homes are in several neighborhoods in Pingree Grove and Gilberts. The Gilberts homes were built at the northwest corner of Freeman and Galligan Roads, and the Pingree Grove homes are a couple miles south near Highway 20. I don’t know how this happened,” he said.

“In recent weeks, I have done two things: I have informed Donna King, Kane County supervisor of assessments, about the problem, and I have done the paperwork to get these 83 homes onto the tax rolls, which should have been done by November 1 of last year, according to state law and county regulations,” he said. “I ran an audit on all the assessment books in the township. these new homes should have been recorded on the township tax book last year. A total of 17 taxing bodies in Kane County have been deprived of important funding because of this omission.”

Fritz also produced an omitted property report, which listed all 83 properties in financial detail. It showed that the omitted properties total more than $130,700 in value, and represent $1.5 million of new construction in 2017. Fritz also showed the Sun Day a copy of a letter he sent to Donna King, on March 25. The letter described all 83 properties in financial detail and contained this message: The homes for the following parcel numbers were occupied in 2017. I certify today, March 25, 2018, that the parcels listed below were occupied in the year 2017 and therefore should be assessed as of their date of occupancy.”

Sanders said, “It’s not my job to oversee the assessor, I didn’t know about this until Gary’s presentation. There is no line of authority or accountability between my office and the assessor’s. Jan turned in her assessor book containing the tax rolls on June 23 (which was about five months before her term ended on Dec. 31). Since then, I understand there is some additional stuff that has to be done. So far as I know, Jan got her stuff done on time. In the past, she usually got a bonus for meeting all her deadlines. We may not have all the facts about this yet.”

On Friday, April 13, Siers said she had no comment at this time. Earlier this year, Siers said Township Clerk Kathy Rendl asked her to serve as deputy clerk. She accepted the position after the board approved Rendl’s request to fill the position.

Bulmahn, who was the township’s supervisor for five years and a member of the board for a number of years until 2017, issued a strong criticism of Siers.

“She omitted assessments that represent millions for taxing bodies in the county. She didn’t do her job, this is a pure case of negligence, and she is making it very difficult for her successor,” (referring to Fritz).

Bulmahn went on to say that the root problem to all this is the State of Illinois.

“The state statutes protect and shield local elected officials from accountability,” he said. “The trustees in the board have no oversight authority at all. All they do is approve a budget each year, and the result in this case is a significant error. Nobody is reflecting taxpayers’ interests.”

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