D300 probe goes to panel

CARPENTERSVILLE — Community Unit School District 300's legal counsel is seeking help from Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan about how to handle an ethics complaint filed against board of education member Mary Warren.

The case may be the first test of a new state ethics law in terms of claims against a school board member, officials said.

District 300's board of education appointed a three-member panel Tuesday to investigate whether Warren violated a district ethics policy by working with a political action committee on a referendum-related phone survey last summer, officials said.

Board members previously had decided to review a complaint filed against Warren themselves, as permitted under state law, but word that Warren planned to call three fellow board members as witnesses at her hearing left the board without a quorum to vote on the matter.

Warren did not immediately return a phone call Tuesday afternoon about why she plans to call board President John Court, Secretary Anne Miller and member Mary Fioretti to testify.

"I have no idea specifically about what she plans to ask," Court said.

The investigation started after Warren used funds from the local political action committee Schools Now last summer to hire a public relations company that polled 500 residents about the school district and a hypothetical tax increase. Warren worked for Schools Now before she was elected to the school board in 2001.

On Sept. 7, a District 300 resident filed a complaint with the school board, citing possible violations of an ethics policy the board adopted in June to comply with a new state law. The complainant also objected to Warren using district financial staff to craft the survey.

The State Officials and Employees Ethics Act, enacted by the General Assembly in November 2003, prohibits government officers — including school board members — from participating "in a public opinion poll in connection with a campaign for elective office or on behalf of a political organization for political purposes or for or against any referendum question."

Warren downplayed the complaint two weeks ago, saying the board has not filed a referendum question and the intent of the law's legal wording was unclear. Furthermore, she said, Schools Now had conducted similar surveys in the past and Superintendent Kenneth Arndt was aware that this poll was going to be conducted.

Arndt disputed that point Tuesday. The idea of conducting a poll came up when the board first discussed hiring public relations firm UNICOM-ARC last fall to facilitate a public engagement campaign, he said. But the community-led public engagement group, called Connect 300, did not favor doing a survey, he said.

"I thought it was being dropped," Arndt said.

The board has only six members after Jill Grung resigned last month, and Warren and her three witnesses would leave only two board members to vote on whether Warren committed an ethics violation.

Thus the board has created a three-member ethics commission. District 300 Vice President Richard Traub; Julie Vallejo, the Kane County Regional Office of Education associate superintendent; and retired Elgin School District U46 administrator Richard Majka are the members.

Kriha said she will seek an informal legal opinion from Attorney General Lisa Madigan about whether the emergency procedures are appropriate. She said she expected to received a reply within the next month.

If Madigan gives a go-ahead, the commission will hold a hearing about a week later, Kriha said. After that hearing, the commission will have 45 days to decide whether Warren violated the district's ethics policy and whether she did so intentionally. If the commission rules against Warren, it would refer the case to the state's attorney's office for prosecution or imposition of penalty.

Violations are punishable by $2,500 fines and jail time according to state law, but Kriha said Illinois's School Code does not permit school boards to level such penalties.

Kriha said this may be the first ethics violation filed against a school board member under the new state law, based on her conversations with staff at the Illinois State Board of Education and the attorney general's office.