On Jan. 31, 2023, Mahomet-Seymour Board President Max McComb wrote an opinion piece for the News-Gazette in rebuttal to what board member Meghan Hennesy said at the Jan. 17, 2023, regularly scheduled board of education meeting. The following are just excerpts from those pieces. Hennesy’s speech (Jan. 17) can be found here. McComb’s opinion piece (Jan. 31) can be found here.
This project is not an attempt to look at every issue that was brought up in its entirety. This publication has reported on some of these issues before. In those cases, links are provided so that each reader can learn more about the issue. The articles that follow are an attempt to look at the claims each board member brought up. In some cases, one board member named others. In those cases, this publication looked at what happened surrounding those claims. All of the articles can be found on this page. Each article also includes documents and videos referenced.
We understand that this piece comes two months after these events took place. We have taken time to watch discussions of every topic over the last three years, to look at board agendas and minutes from the same time period, to read emails, to send FOIA requests, and to undertake a major project in analyzing TIF data. This work took time, and that is why it took so long to complete.
Hennesy Quote
“I have seen shocking things like this school board voted against a measure that would ensure we don’t have any appearance of impropriety through quid pro quos. So members of the school board went up to Chicago, on the taxpayer dime for an IASB weekend to the tune of 12 to $20,000, somewhere in there. And beforehand, voted against a measure that would prevent us from going out to dinner and being wined and dined by companies that then come and ask to contract with the school district. This is shocking to me. The appearance of impropriety and the potential real quid pro quos are dangerous for this district. But this school board voted against that because we want to go up and… I’m not really sure. I went on one, saw everything that I needed to see, haven’t been back since because I don’t think is an appropriate use of the taxpayers’ money.”
“As soon as this board turns over, you will see those contracts that we were supposed to come back to this board and mysteriously have not made it back to the agenda [Ameresco], come back in May or June after the board has turned over so that those folks that wined and dined us up in Chicago can come, and without any real discussion, have their contracts confirmed and pushed through this district.”
Meghan Hennesy
McComb Quotes
“In a Jan. 20 News-Gazette story, Mrs. Hennesy chastised the board for the “appearance of any impropriety through quid pro quos.” This has to do with the annual conference put on by the Illinois Association of School Boards, which many school board members around the state attend each year.
It is a valuable source of information, training and networking.”
Max McComb
“Attempting to advance the narrative that any of our board members would award large contracts to a vendor based on the receipt of a cup of coffee, a seminar or some food is insulting to most of our board and furthermore has never happened.”
Max McComb
“A secondary reason for propagating this “quid pro quo” narrative is that the district has been in negotiations for some work that could possibly end up being completed by one of the major sponsors of this conference. Mrs. Hennesy has made it clear she prefers for us to hire a different company, which her neighbor coincidentally works for.”
“The fact is, at this point, we don’t know which one of several qualified contractors may end up with this work. What I do know is that the decision will be based on objective business reasons, not on how much food the contractor has provided for us or who their neighbor is.”
Max McComb
Looking Back
In the way government is structured, it is difficult to “follow the money.” The furthest one can go is to look at bill lists and make connections between board/district members and businesses/organizations.
What happens outside of those documents or assessments is nearly impossible to follow without outside help.
In reviewing board agendas from 2018-2023 and emails made available via FOIA, there is a list of companies that give donations of money, food or gifts to the district, the Mahomet-Seymour Education Foundation and/or the Bulldog Blueprint initiative, who are also chosen for work within the Mahomet-Seymour School District, either on a project-by-project basis or with performance agreements that don’t have an end date.
Does one correlate with the other? Is it quid pro quo, a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something? Or something that should be shrugged off?
Of course, it’d be difficult to prove anything with the information we have available. But we can piece parts of it together.
For example, Mahomet-Seymour taxpayers spent $11,554.53 for Mahomet-Seymour’s Director of Student Support Services Christine Northrup, Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent Dawn Quinley, Chief School Business Official Heather Smith, Superintendent Lindsey Hall, Assistant Superintendent Nicole Rummel, and board members Justin Lamb, Max McComb, and Sunny McMurry to spend three days at the IASB conference in 2021.
IASB stands for Illinois Association of School Boards. According to Ballotpedia, the organization is a registered lobbyist with the state of Illinois. Mahomet-Seymour pays membership dues to the association. The organization holds an annual conference in Chicago.
Different school districts take different approaches to the three-day weekend. St. Joseph CCSD #169 and Heritage School District, for example, make a point not to dine with vendors at the conference, while Mahomet-Seymour employees and board members spend most of their time with vendors, as evidenced by the following 2021 conference itinerary.
Knowing this, and seeing how those vendors who provide hors d’ oeuvres or dinners at the conference are the ones considered for projects without a bidding process, board member Colleen Schultz made a motion to eliminate the possibility of impropriety at the 2022 conference.
At the October 2022 board meeting, she amended a motion about the delegate at the conference to include: “in addition in order to avoid impropriety or appearance of impropriety District employees and Board Members will not accept food or beverages from vendors or firms who do business with the District past, present or anticipated future.”
She did not make a motion to block the board or staff from going to the conference.
McComb said, “That’s going to be very difficult to do because one of the advantages of being up there is networking with people.” He also believes having vendors take the group out saves the district money.
The vote failed with a vote of 2-3, Hennesy and Schultz voting for, and McComb, McMurry and Lamb voting against.
Hennesy said she attended the conference in 2020, seeing “all she needed to see.” She did not attend in 2021 when the board and district employees visited Bushue Human Resources, Ameresco, BLDD, CORE Construction, Franczek and Stifel for some sort of food or drinks. These vendors have access to some of the biggest contracts from the Mahomet-Seymour School District.
Because a FOIA request is still under review by the Public Access Counselor, we do not know what the board or employees did during the 2022 conference. We do know that Henensy, Schultz, Keefe or Henrichs did not go.
Donations from some of these same vendors popped back up during the Bulldog Blueprint initiative. BLDD Architects, the firm behind the Bulldog Blueprint and the district’s architect of record which will design whatever the community ultimately decides on, gave $4,500.
Donations from March 30 to June 2022 came from Broeren Russo Builders, Inc for $500, Core Construction Services of IL for $2,500, Davis Electric for $1,000, Davis-Houk Mechanical for $1,000, and Harold O’Shea Builders, Inc for $3,000.
When asked about bids for the Building Construction Manager that went out prior to June 28, Superintendent Kenny Lee said Broeren Russo, Core Construction, and O’Shea all would have been contenders for that position. Davis-Houk and Davis Electric frequently show up on the board of education’s monthly bill list.
It’s difficult to follow donations, too, though.
When BLDD and Stifel showed up on the monthly bill list as giving a donation for a basket to be used at the Foundation’s Bulldog Bash, the district was asked to provide donation information over a five-year period. The donation did not show up within the information the district provided, and the district did not provide additional information on when or how those donations were made.
In communication with the Public Access Counselor, Franczek, one of the board’s attorneys wrote: “In her request for review, the requester reasonably argues that the public may have an interest in the identity of donors if the donor is a vendor, affiliated with a vendor, or otherwise seeks to conduct business with the District. That, however, is not the case in this instance. The District has verified that none of the anonymous donors for which the District possess names are vendors, affiliated with vendors, or otherwise seeking to do business with the District. All are private individuals that desire to donate to the District related to their own altruism.”
Donations like one CORE Construction’s $750 contribution to staff t-shirts was also not included in the response. And donations like the one Stifel Nicolaus, a brokerage and investment banking firm that earns payment when the district borrows money, made to the Mahomet-Seymour Education Foundation on request of the Mahomet-Seymour School District administration cannot be followed other than seeing the request in email.
It is almost certain the need for services provided by contractors, architects, construction and maintenance companies, and bond and investment firms will continue to be needed by the district in the future. Many of these companies already have agreements with the district to indefinitely provide services for some of those needs while others are in the business of building and renovating school buildings.
Perhaps the companies who took district officials out to dinner or made donations to the district or its interests will be the ones who end up getting the work. Or the district could also go out to bid for contracts to make the process more competitive.
In the case of Ameresco, who is in its sixth contract amendment over a 10-year period with the district, the Mahomet-Seymour High School HVAC project may not need to be bid out.
For example, under 105 ILCS 5/Art. 19b, school districts can bypass requirements that contracts be awarded to low bidders when improvements are supposed to cut energy costs in an amount sufficient to pay for the work. In Sept. 2022, the board looked at a $750,000 contract to approve Ameresco as a project contractor to put in HVAC controls at Mahomet-Seymour High School.
Prior to 2019, the district did work with other vendors on various projects. The district has previously used vendors, like Alpha, too for similar work. In addition, the district also used BLDD while simultaneously using Ittner Architects for nearly six years. Whether or not those companies fulfilled the need the district was looking for isn’t the issue; instead, it’s that there are other businesses out there, but the ones who are giving donations are the ones chosen for work.
The Ameresco vote has not come back to the board, but it, among others that have to do with facilities is likely to after May 2023.
Materials used in this article
