During a combative meeting Tuesday night, Thornton Township trustees refused to approve events they say invite reckless spending on the part of Supervisor Tiffany Henyard, who has been under consistent scrutiny for financial mismanagement as township supervisor and Dolton mayor.
Henyard railed against Trustees Chris Gonzalez, Carmen Carlisle and Gerald Jones for voting to cancel the upcoming Gospel Fest, House Fest and bingo, saying the events predate her administration. The board approved the monthly Tech Savvy event that provides technology skills training with a reduced budget.
“I don’t understand why it’s a problem now that Tiffany Henyard is supervisor, when it wasn’t a problem when Frank Zuccarelli was supervisor,” Henyard said. “It’s the exact same things.”
An ordinance passed by the Township Board last month requires the board to sign off on event budgets before money is committed or spent. Henyard scheduled a special meeting Aug. 29 to similarly try to approve certain events as well as amend recently passed ordinances, but no trustees showed up.
Trustees Carlisle and Gonzalez said Tuesday the township needs to rein in spending as they are operating without an approved budget.
“We can’t continue to spend money without that in place,” Gonzalez said. “And even beyond that, I mean we had a couple of events here in the past month or so that just an extraordinary amount of money was spent unnecessarily.”
Trustees also again denied payment of bills for goods and services they say were symptomatic of Henyard’s excessive spending.
Before the bills came to a vote, Henyard demanded Carlisle, who moved to exclude the 160 items she said were unnecessary to township operations, read each expense aloud to those watching the meeting for the sake of transparency.
When Carlisle failed to do so, Henyard asked the same of finance director Robert Hunt, who reported tens of thousands of dollars spent through township credit cards including at retailers such as Amazon and Walmart, and for services to media and entertainment companies.
“People just nitpick things they want to not approve and not do what’s right,” Henyard said after Hunt read all the items.
Carlisle responded by indicating Henyard’s office has failed to comply with a recently approved ordinance requiring regular audits of event-related expenses and departments and said vendor contracts were not approved by the board before services were rendered.
“We’re not here to try and take anything out,” Carlisle said.
The board unanimously agreed to hire lawyers from Chicago firm Leinenweber, Daffada and Sansonetti to represent the township in three cases.
ostevens@chicagotribune.com
