If Alvin Parks wants to be on East St. Louis ballot in March, it’ll cost him $176,000
Another attempt by East St. Louis Township Supervisor Alvin Parks to reach a settlement with the state over his more than $150,000 in campaign finance fines was rejected Thursday.
The State Board of Elections ruled to deny a settlement offer of approximately half of what Parks owes to the state and further ruled that to appear on the March 17 primary ballot, he must pay a total of $176,100 in fines accrued from failures to file campaign contribution reports.
Parks approached the board at its monthly meeting with a settlement offer of $88,005, half of the unpaid fines he owes to the state. The fines have been accruing since 2011, when he was mayor of East St. Louis.
“At this point, we have to determine next steps and I have a lot of thinking and consulting to do,” Parks said after the decision. “ We’re back to the drawing board to see where we go from here.”
State law requires political committees or politicians to file reports every time a contribution of more than $1,000 is made. Parks stopped filing the campaign contribution reports in 2011 and was fined $5,000 each time. He was fined again in August for failure to report, according to state board meeting minutes.
Parks, because of the outstanding fines, cannot be certified for elections, meaning he cannot appear on the ballot even if he files for office. Through a “loophole” he was able to pay fines levied between 2011 and 2018 without filing the actual reports, according to documents obtained from the board of elections.
During that time, Parks was reelected in 2011 without having filed a financial report.
The loophole was closed in 2017 when the board imposed new election rules. Committees now can levy maximum fines when reports were “sufficiently late.” For Parks’ committee, that amounted to roughly $5,000 for two or more reports that were not filed.
Since being established in 2006, Parks’ committee has paid $59,395. Those payments have gone entirely toward the payment of fines for late filings and other violations of State Election Board orders.
Illinois Board of Elections Division of Campaign Disclosure Director Tom Newman wrote in his report to the board that if each unfiled report had been considered separately, Parks could have been fined an additional $70,000.
Parks, who currently holds office as East St. Louis Township Supervisor, said he hoped to run for precinct committeeman in East St. Louis. He said he also wants to “clear his name” with the state.
“I’d like to clear my name and I feel as if we’ve gone a long way toward doing that,” Parks said in December. “Even if I never run for office again beyond this precinct committeeman election, it’s good to have the option.”
When he was elected supervisor, he owed roughly $95,000 in administrative fines to the state, but due to uncertainty at the state board about how to enforce unpaid fines, he was allowed to remain on the ballot and subsequently won the election.
In December, Parks appeared before the state board of elections to offer an $8,613.85 settlement from Citizens to Elect Alvin Parks Jr., his campaign fund. However, board members decided accepting that amount would have represented a “flagrant disregard” for the board’s disclosure system and would have set a “horrible precedent” for future cases.
In reality, due to reporting errors, the state found Parks’ campaign fund actually had just $8.85 in it to offer the state. His settlement offer was declined.