Kim Buchanan
SALINE CO. – The ongoing drama surrounding Saline County’s duly-elected county clerk has heated back up again after a couple of months of simmering down.
Kim Buchanan came under the microscope again, however, in early September when questions arose regarding an expenditure paid out of the treasurer’s office that hadn’t received board approval.
Buchanan, who is in her second term since taking the office from long-time clerk Willie McCluskey in 2010, is facing civil lawsuits from a couple of different fronts, all of it having to do with her performance of the job…or lack thereof.
This time it has to do with a reimbursement issue that’s causing the county board fits.
The matter emerged after the Consolidated Election in April of this year. Buchanan, as county clerk, has the responsibility to ensure proper functioning of polling machines and their placement at polling places around the county. As such, she must drive her personal vehicle to the locations in the weeks leading up to the election and even on election day if necessary.
At some point in time in May of this year, Buchanan submitted a mileage form, declaring her miles driven during the election lead-up and day. Buchanan, it’s reported, sent the form directly to Jeff Murrie, Saline County Treasurer, at which point the reimbursement was issued directly to her…which is the first faux pas, as the appropriate method of reimbursement would have been to turn over the form to the county board for approval, then payment.
Instead, about 3,000 miles were reimbursed directly; at federal mileage rates, that’s .535 per mile, or a little over $1,600.
The next problem came in when the county board became aware of the matter later, following the actual reimbursement…because even if it occurred over several months, there was no possible way Buchanan could have driven that amount of miles within the county.
“Maybe several years ago,” said a source close to the situation, “when we had more polling places, there might have been that many miles driven. But since there’s been such consolidation of polling places, there’s just no way.”
So Buchanan was questioned about the reimbursement by the county board, with board member and Claims Committee Mike McKinnies leading the charge.
Buchanan averred in all queries, stating that that was just how many miles she drove during the election season and that there was nothing more to it.
However, over the previous several weeks (toward the end of August), after making this claim throughout the summer, Buchanan finally advised that she’d reviewed the miles she’d reported, and it had come to her attention that one of her deputy clerks had made a “mistake” on the mileage form, and that it was about a thousand miles less than she’d initially reported.
With McKinnies reportedly still unsatisfied with the situation and demanding an answer from her, Buchanan stuck to that story…but did not return any of the money disbursed, which, on a thousand miles, would be over $500 returned to county coffers.
Disclosure submitted a query to Buchanan on September 19, asking her to speak to any accusations of her being told not to submit mileage for reimbursement for herself, and received no answer to such a question.
Instead, Buchanan inexplicably sent two letters which were apparently submitted to McKinnies as well as to county board chairman Jay Williams from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office regarding two requests to the Public Access Committee (PAC) over Freedom of Information Act filings.
Both were dated August 11, and both regarded a June 20 FOIA. What the FOIAs were for were not addressed by Buchanan in her response to Disclosure; she apparently felt the letters were sufficient explanation to the question, when in fact they were completely non-responsive. Neither FOIA responses explained anything regarding the nature of the FOIAs, and in fact a FOIA wouldn’t even have been necessary to file under the circumstances, as the county board already had the reimbursement request and check stub. They already knew what had happened, and a query to the PAC office regarding a FOIA pertains only to documents, not to an incident.
Ergo it’s now being reviewed by someone else – the county’s counsel, State’s Attorney Jayson Clark.
While Clark said that he couldn’t comment as to many of the other items under question, he did say that the matter is now being referred to the Attorney General’s Public Integrity Bureau.
And that likely might never have happened had there not already been significant problems going on with Buchanan for the past couple of years or so to begin with, such problems being what prompted the other civil lawsuits mentioned at the outset of the article.
Buchanan had to be sued in civil court early this year for not properly responding to a county resolution that had to be put into place because she allegedly wasn’t providing spreadsheets showing her department’s finances as requested by the county board.
Changes in some of her department’s transactions had been made in recent years, and the board found that some of her budget reporting was confusing, so they instituted a county resolution that required Buchanan to provide a comprehensive report, this being accomplished a little over a year ago.
At last check, there were still items missing off the spreadsheet that Buchanan should be reporting but is not.
A source close to the situation advised that it’s possible that since former county treasurer Danny Ragan developed the spreadsheet, and did it without knowing exactly what the different categories of expense and income at her office were, that might end up being the excuse Buchanan gives for not adhering to the county resolution.
However, the same source has advised that Buchanan didn’t want to assist Ragan in the creation of the document, which would have filled in some of the holes in the report that he wouldn’t, by virtue of the fact that it wasn’t his department, have known that she had to report, including different funds, transactions and allocations that have come about in the past couple of years.
It’s being reported that now, Buchanan might be facing a contempt of court request in that particular case. The case itself has been closed, but a request might be in order so that she will be forced by the court to report her department’s activity. That can be requested in the case regardless of whether it’s closed or not.
A contempt finding could result in a number of different outcomes besides the forcing of Buchanan to reveal the transactions on the spreadsheet. She could be fined for not complying with the court’s order to produce the document in full and properly. She could also be sentenced to a term in jail.
Interestingly, the case regarding the big reimbursement check and the case regarding not producing the requested documents may have dovetailed.
When the miscellaneous remedy (MR) case was filed earlier this year ordering Buchanan to turn over the spreadsheets at the appropriate times, she was appointed another state’s attorney (Tyler Edmonds of Union County) to handle her legal interests, since Clark, as the county’s/county entities’ legal counsel, had a perceived conflict on the case (and the Williamson County State’s Attorney provided one of their Assistant State’s Attorneys to represent Saline on the same conflict: Wendy Cunningham is doing those honors). That way, Buchanan isn’t out any funds in her own defense for an action that took place when she was in her official capacity acting as the county’s clerk.
However, that’s not the case in the other lawsuit filed against her over the summer.
County board secretary Helen Dunn filed a Defamation case against Buchanan July 13, charging that Buchanan defamed her at a county board meeting by accusing Dunn of creating an email account in Buchanan’s name and pretending to be Buchanan.
Dunn alleges there is nothing to that accusation, and because it was made with malice and published to the public (in an open meeting and in meeting minutes available to the public), it rises to defamation, and she’s seeking a monetary award.
In this case, Buchanan isn’t appointed an attorney; she’s on her own. As such, she’s hired Richard Kruger, an attorney in Metropolis.
While the timing is a little off, speculation has it that perhaps Buchanan was attorney-shopping in the weeks leading up to the election following the filing of the MR case, despite the fact that she’d already had Edmonds appointed to protect her interests.
Nevertheless, some are wondering if amongst those 3,000 miles were some trips down to Metropolis to find, and confer with, the attorney she ultimately hired to represent her in the Defamation case.
It’s been suggested that cell phone pings be obtained from Buchanan’s phone in the time period covering the weeks before turning in the reimbursement form. If she were driving in areas that had nothing to do with the election or official county business, pings will show it. Of course, deflection would likely come into play, involving excuses that “someone else” had the phone…but it might be a good start.
Such a thing could be carried out at the behest of the AG’s office if they decide to take the case.
Any updates will be available in upcoming issues.