(The Center Square) – Americans for Prosperity Illinois is asking Attorney General Kwame Raoul and four county state’s attorneys to investigate whether 24 local taxing bodies used taxpayer resources to campaign for more taxpayer money.
Americans for Prosperity Illinois Deputy State Director Brian Costin said 24 Illinois school districts and other taxing bodies credited consultants they hired with helping pass a combined projected total of $3.4 billion in tax collections through referendums.
Costin said that would be a violation of the state ethics act by spending public funds on what he categorized as thinly disguised campaigns to get voters to approve tax and bond referendums.
Costin said it is important for the Illinois attorney general to act now, because more referendums are on the ballot this November.
“Kwame Raoul is completely publicly silent on this issue and absolutely refuses to get engaged where local governments are clearly breaking the law,” Costin told The Center Square.
Quoting a testimonial by Indian Prairie School District 204 Superintendent Adrian Talley for a consulting firm the district hired, Costin repeated: “The passage of our $420 million bond referendum would not have been possible without Beyond Your Base’s strategies,” Costin said,
AFP also cited testimonials by current or former officials at Deerfield Public Schools District 109, Park Ridge-Niles School District 64, Lake Forest Community High School District 115, Community Consolidated School District 46, Joliet Public Schools District 86, Downers Grove Grade School District 58, Community Consolidated School District 15, Mundelein School Districts 75 and 120, North Shore School District 112, The Winnetka Public Schools, District 36, Northbrook/Glenview School District 30, Maine Township High School District 207, Community High School District 99, New Trier Township High School District 203, Mount Prospect School District 57 and Glenview School District 34, as well as White Oak Library District and several park districts.
Costin has asked Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the Cook, DuPage, Lake and Will county state’s attorneys to investigate.
“If they don’t, they’re really letting local government run rampant here, breaking state law. It’s as if the state ethics act didn’t even exist,” Costin said.
The Illinois Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to The Center Square’s request for comment.
In July, Costin filed an ethics complaint against Arlington Heights-based Township High School 214 over the alleged use of taxpayer resources to conduct referendum-related polling and voter surveying.
