Madison County GOP criticizes board members for statements about lawsuits

Madison County Republicans are criticizing other county board members for public statements following a closed-session meeting last month regarding lawsuits against the treasurer’s office.

The county board had a closed-session meeting on March 23 to question County Treasurer Kurt Prenzler before the entire board about a discrimination suit against his office. The board discussed the suit in closed session during its regular county board meeting the week before, but Prenzler was not present, as he was giving a deposition in a St. Clair County lawsuit at the time.

County attorneys then requested the special meeting so that questions could be answered, and they could get more direction in how to handle the suit. After the special meeting, a press release from members of the county board’s finance committee was issued, criticizing Prenzler’s handling of the suit.

Prenzler is challenging County Chairman Alan Dunstan in the November election.

GOP criticism

The Madison County Republican Party on Friday called the press release “ill-timed and misleading,” and said the public statements by leading Democrats and some Republicans on the finance committee might undermine the county’s appeal in the discrimination suit, which was filed by a former employee in Prenzler’s office and recently won at trial, with a potential $1.02 million verdict. Prenzler has said he plans to appeal.

“I was absolutely shocked that the county would issue a press release on a pending case that potentially undermines the standing of the county,” said county board member Tom McRae, R-Bethalto. “This case is still awaiting final review by the trial judge who could significantly reduce the judgment against the county, and the ill-advised statements of the representatives of our county government may have actually hurt the county’s ongoing efforts to minimize the cost to taxpayers.”

County board member Mick Madison, R-Moro, called it “political theater,” alleging that Democrats on the county board are threatened by Prenzler. They were joined by board member Helen Hawkins, D-Granite City, who said the press release and executive sessions were a “political witch-hunt by those threatened by Prenzler.”

Both county board members who have publicly broken ties with their own parties in recent weeks have some personal complications: Republican board member Bill Meyer, who has openly criticized Prenzler in finance committee meetings, recently lost a primary race to a Republican backed by Prenzler; and Hawkins recently sought a position on the Metro-East Sanitation District and was passed over by Dunstan.

Dunstan said he was not part of releasing the statement after the closed session, but that it did not mention anything that had not already been discussed in an open session of the finance committee. “It came from county board members, and they have the right to say what they want to say,” he said.

Discrimination suits

In 2014, former comptroller Linda Dunnagan sued the county and the treasurer’s office for discrimination, alleging that she was pressured to quit after she returned to work following a life-threatening illness. She declined and said she wanted to continue working, but then Prenzler eliminated her position.

Dunnagan sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act in federal court. The suit went to trial, and the jury sided with Dunnagan, awarding compensatory damages of $450,000, plus legal expenses and lost wages. Prenzler previously said that Dunnagan’s position was eliminated as a cost-saving measure.

According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, current estimated costs of the suit include the $450,000 jury verdict, $152,000 in legal fees paid to date, $37,000 in pending legal fees, $17,000 for post-trial legal fees, $80,000 for Dunnagan’s back pay, $165,000 for the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees, $50,000 for legal fees for the appeal, and if unsuccessful, another $60,000 for the plaintiff’s appeal fees. In all, the cost would be approximately $1.02 million.

The GOP press release stated that Prenzler believed the case didn’t have merit because he didn’t consider Dunnagan to be disabled, and thus he declined to settle. Prenzler has declined to comment further on the case, except that he still intends to appeal. If the appeal is unsuccessful, damages could still be reduced at the judge’s discretion.

Board member Lisa Ciampoli, R-Collinsville, believes the executive session was out of line, as the county has been sued before; she referenced a discrimination suit against Regional Superintendent Bob Daiber that was settled several years before.

“Chairman Dunstan never once called for an executive session of the county board before paying the nearly half-million-dollar settlement in the Daiber case,” she said. “The Daiber case was quietly settled under the radar by the political machine without executive sessions and scathing press releases.”

Mary Parker sued Madison County and the regional superintendent’s office for wage discrimination in 2010, alleging that she was paid significantly less than a male coworker doing the same job. According to court documents, Parker was being paid $30,742 while her male coworker was paid $43,035. Both were laid off in 2009 when grant money was cut by the state, and when some money was restored, the coworker was rehired instead of Parker.

The county responded in court filings that while the two employees’ duties were substantially similar; they were occasionally assigned different duties. The male coworker was rehired instead of Parker because he had more seniority, they argued, and passing him over in favor of Parker would have violated his employment rights. They also argued that there were 26 other employees who were laid off that year and were not recalled.

The case went to trial in November 2012, and the jury found in favor of Madison County on two out of three counts regarding discrimination. The third count favored Parker’s allegation that she was not rehired after the layoff as retaliation for filing a complaint.

“We strongly disagreed with the finding of retaliation because it was a position that existed by a grant that expired,” said Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons. “But these things multiply with attorneys’ fees and other issues. You roll the dice when you’re in a situation like that... We fight very hard to protect the county, but we only have the evidence that we have.”

The jury awarded Parker $100,000 on the retaliation charge, which grew to $432,145 when the judge ruled that she was eligible for back pay, benefits and potential front pay. A request for attorneys’ fees could have pushed it to $750,000, according to the county’s office of safety and risk management. In the end, the county filed an appeal, but then settled for approximately $487,500 while the appeal was pending.

“When we went forward to appeal, we found it would cost (significantly more) for attorney’s fees,” said Regional Superintendent Robert Daiber. “We were still subject to those fees, win or lose, so we decided just to settle.”

Political wrangling

Mike Walters, R-Godfrey, said that was one of several times the county has been sued by employees. “Where was the outrage by those wagging their fingers at Mr. Prenzler on those cases?” he said.

Dunstan said the Parker case wasn’t the subject of a closed session meeting because it was voted on in open session before the entire board. The settlement appears in the minutes of the board meeting for Dec. 18, 2013.

“The difference between (the Dunnagan case) and this case is that we were able to settle; (Daiber) was in favor of settling,” he said. “The treasurer is not willing to settle.”

Daiber confirmed that he was in favor of settling the Parker suit. “We wanted to be done with it,” he said. “We would rather have settled for zero, but that wasn’t practical.”

That has been one of the biggest points of contention in the county board regarding the Dunnagan suit: finance committee chairman Jack Minner, D-Edwardsville, has said he believes the suit should have been settled before it went to trial. He said it could have been settled for as little as $60,000 then.

But Prenzler denied that there was ever an offer at $60,000 and maintains the lowest offer he received was $175,000.

“They don’t have their facts straight,” he said, calling the ongoing debate over the suit “political theater.”

Kelly Tracy, D-Marine, has been one of Prenzler’s strongest critics on the finance committee and was one of the board members in the original statement. She said the GOP’s statement on Friday was an “interesting and defensive reaction to the facts.”

“They are criticizing other board members for discussing issues that were already published in the paper, and nothing more,” Tracy said. “The release they created discussed things that were from executive session, and they seem to be grasping at straws to try and cover up facts that they know are not able to be discussed fully until the case is finished. The facts are stacked against their leader, Kurt Prenzler, and this is a blatant attempt to distract people from the truth.”

Madison County Republican Party Chairman Chris Slusser disagreed. “It’s healthy for elected officials to be held accountable for their decisions,” he said. “However, in this case, there seems to be a double standard that is troubling,”

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 4:30 PM with the headline "Madison County GOP criticizes board members for statements about lawsuits."