Edgar Co., Ill. (ECWd) –
Last month, the Edgar County Board held a Special Meeting, one of the agenda items included appointing the new Sheriff (presumed)(only person on the ballot) and a current part-time sheriff deputy.
Edgar County’s Emergency Telephone System (“ETS”) is unique in how it is setup where the employees are on the Sheriff’s payroll, and the Sheriff enters into a contract where the payroll for the telecommunicators are paid by the Emergency Telephone System Board to the Sheriff’s Department.
We wrote about this issue for years, specifically during Sheriff Motley’s tenure and into Sheriff Wood’s tenure. In 2015 the Illinois Attorney General’s Opinions Bureau published an informal opinion explaining that the Edgar County Sheriff (including Deputies) could not serve on the Edgar County Emergency Telephone System Board (“ETSB”) stating that they were incompatible in Edgar County, based on how the employees and finances were arranged.
The Emergency Telephone System Act, at the time, read: “Elected officials, including members of a county board, are also eligible to serve on the board.” – However, Sheriffs were still eligible under the “public safety” eligibility to be ETSB members.
The problem lies with an incompatible conflict of duties wherein the Sheriff or his Deputy cannot, in every instance, fully and faithfully discharge all the duties of both office(s) (ETSB and Sheriff). Balancing the interests of the Sheriff’s Office and the ETSB is untenable, the Sheriff could have significant influence on the decisions of the ETSB which could be to his benefit as the Sheriff’s Department, and that this situation would be an actual conflict of duties.
While Public Act 103-693, eff. 1-1-25, did change the language in 50 ILCS 750/15.4(a), to add that a Sheriff “is eligible” to serve on the ETSB, it did not mandate that a Sheriff serve on the board and it did not provide for simultaneous tenure under the circumstance of how the Edgar County ETSB is set up (the vast majority of county ETSB’s are not setup the way Edgar County’s is). The Illinois Public Officer Simultaneous Tenure Act did not change. The Public Officer Prohibited Activities Act did not change.
The Edgar County Sheriff and the Edgar County ETSB have a contract between each entity where public funds are exchanged for services.
From a 2012 Informal Opinion: “The Illinois Supreme Court has stated that section 3 of the Prohibited Activities Act is a broadly drafted conflict of interest statute (Croissant v. Joliet Park District, 141 Ill. 2d 449, 459 (1990); Miller v. County of Lake, 79 Ill. 2d 481, 490 (1980)), which expresses a general policy requiring public officers to refrain from entering into transactions which could give rise to competing interests or loyalties that could hamper their performance as public officials. Croissant, 141 IlL 2d at 459-62. Therefore, section 3 of the Prohibited Activities Act not only bars an official from having a pecuniary interest in a contract, but also prohibits the officer from being placed in a position where he or she may be called upon to act or vote with respect to a contract that inures to the official’s benefit. Miller, 79 Ill. 2d at 490.”
A Sheriff or Deputy on the Edgar County ETSB would definitely be called upon to act or vote (in their capacity as ETSB board members) with respect to the contract that inures to the official’s (Sheriff’s Department) benefit.
During the July Special Meeting (video below), the State’s Attorney did mention that the ETSB statute was change after the Informal Opinion was written and that appropriate recusal procedures could take place.
We read the change and there is no recusal procedure found as mentioned: “Elected officials, including county sheriffs and members of a county board, are also eligible to serve on the board.” It did not provide a recusal procedure and did not authorize simultaneous tenure (which would effectively be the General Assembly’s way of statutorily eliminating the issues of incompatibility).
