Madison County Board chairman compares auditor to ISIS for refusing to release information
In a fundraising newsletter to supporters, Madison County Board Chairman Kurt Prenzler compared county Auditor Rick Faccin’s refusal to allow access to financial records to “ISIS using women and children as human shields.”
Prenzler, a Republican, and Faccin, a Democrat, have been locked in a public battle over access to county financial records.
Faccin sued the county board to prevent the board from receiving financial information it wanted to help form the budget. Faccin doesn’t want the county board to have it because of an ongoing criminal investigation, which extends from a raid of county offices last year.
The board chairman recently filed a counter lawsuit against Faccin saying he is keeping records a secret. Faccin has denied board access to specific county financial information because it contains proprietary employee information.
Prenzler in the newsletter said he spoke to other administrators in other counties who thought he should at least be given read-only access.
“One county administrator said, ‘I’m suspicious when your auditor says that he can’t give you access, because there is confidential information on the general ledger. His staff put it there. Why?’” Prenzler wrote in the April 13 newsletter.
“Another said, ‘ISIS has used women and children as human shields. Your auditor is doing the same thing with his confidential information argument,’” Prenzler continued.
Prenzler would not disclose the names of the county officials to whom he is referring.
In hindsight, Prenzler said he probably would not have used the ‘ISIS’ language.
“I write these things by myself,” Prenzler said. “I probably need an editor. I probably could have chosen my words a little differently.”
He concedes he probably could have used a different metaphor, saying not having the requested “read-only access” to financial records was like flying an airplane without instrumentation.
Prenzler said the newsletter, sent from a non-county email address, was the regular newsletter he sends out to supporters. This particular version included a fundraising appeal and promoted a May 18 golf outing.
The fundraising email was obtained by the Belleville News-Democrat from a Republican involved in Madison County politics. Prenzler then confirmed he had sent out the comments.
Faccin said he thinks the comment was “absurd.”
“I don’t see the correlation there. I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Faccin said, declining to comment further citing the ongoing litigation.
Madison County Republican Central Committee Chairman Jeremy Plank said this ongoing disagreement could have been solved without going to litigation.
“Kurt Prenzler, as chief executive officer of the county, has every imaginable right to be frustrated,” Plank said. “Rick Faccin’s stonewalling legal actions are unnecessary and unreasonable. This could easily have been resolved outside the courtroom with a win-win solution.”
