Ring-Ring-Ka-Ching = TAXPAYER APPROVED

The annual cost to taxpayers for having four cell phones for Kendall County Coroner Ken Toftoy and his employees was $5,144.32 for FY2011 and presently is $3,063.41 for FY2012 thru date 8-13-2012 for three phones. This is just one area where spending cuts are needed. On 8-28-2012, this line item was finally reduced and cut by 50%; the other area where a cut was discussed in the budget video presentation was a $3,000 reduction in training expenses, which I believe has long been abused and is long overdue.

For those interested in the facts, review the following data and websites and you decide if you like how your tax dollars are being spent:

The Jan. 2011 and Jan. 2012 cell phone bills for the office of Kendall County Coroner were randomly selected for review and were requested in a FOIA on July 20, 2012, before the Kendall County Coroner’s Aug. 28, 2012 Budget Hearing. The Kendall County Coroner’s office went to two phones sometime in May 2012. (Cell phone discussion was from 2:49 minute mark thru 3:50 minute mark of total 29:02 minute long video record = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXWTw54tWYo&feature=vmdshb) The specific assignment of cell phones to Coroner’s staff/personnel for these two new phones is presently unknown. From the video record presented above it would appear Coroner Toftoy still has one of these two full-time coroner’s office cell phones assigned to him.

The Kendall County Coroner’s monthly activity ”death report” for each itemized cell phone billing period is also included with each phone bill reviewed and is at the very beginning of each pdf file provided below.

The Kendall County Coroner’s monthly activity report with the death case number assigned is always presented at the Kendall County Board Public Safety Committee meeting, which is held on the fourth Monday of every month. These Kendall County Coroner monthly reports were obtained from the online Kendall County Board meeting packet website. A copy of each monthly Coroner’s Report for the cell phone billing period 1-28-2011 to 2-27-2011 and cell phone billing period 1-28-2012 to 2-27-2012 are hyperlinked and provided below. Both of these itemized and detailed phone bill records were obtained by a FOIA request. Note that these detailed and itemized cell phone call records are held exclusively at the Kendall County Coroner’s office, are never presented with the itemized detail to the Kendall County Board Finance Committee for their review, and claim approval. Please also note that I have transferred and written in all the times of the recorded “unnatural” deaths found on the monthly Coroner’s Reports, reviewed them, and then transposed those “unnatural" times of deaths on to the itemized phone bill records for these two billing periods.

The purpose of this transfer exercise was to see if there was any relationship between when the calls were received for ”unnatural” death investigations and how they corresponded with any cell phone activity for Coroner Toftoy and/or any of his employees. One thing that became apparent from this transfer exercise was the number of personal phone numbers that were redacted and claimed under the FOIA -71(b) exemption; please review both cell phone bills provided below for the number of “personal” phone numbers that were redacted and blacked out. Please remember, this a government phone that is taxpayer funded and is suppose to be used exclusively for official government reasons that are needed to perform the duties of the Office of the Kendall County Coroner.

http://yorkvilleinsider.org/Purcell/kccpb012812-022712.pdf  = 1-28-2012 to 2-27-2012 Coroner’s Cell Bill, 38 pages total, 12.9MB

(FOIA Denial explanation on page 8 of 38)

(Redaction of personal phone numbers starts on page 20 of 38)

http://yorkvilleinsider.org/Purcell/kccpb012811-022711.pdf   1-28-2011 to 2-27-2011 Coroner’s Cell Bill, 31 pages total, 10.45MB

(Redaction of personal phone numbers starts of page 11 of 31)

One other interesting fact, Independent Kendall County Coroner candidate Mike Dabney started collecting signatures for his Independent Coroner Candidate nominating petition in April 2012. I find it a curious coincidence that Mr. Toftoy suddenly decided in May of 2012 that his office only then needed two cell phones and one other for back up as stated during the Kendall County Coroner 8-28-2012 Budget Hearing video. I have enclosed the Kendall County Treasurer’s General Ledger Report section (Found immediately after the monthly Coroner’s Report) for both Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012 for the Coroner’s “Cellular Phone” line item section where you can see the entry for each phone bill that was reviewed. Each cell phone bill reviewed has been underlined in their respective general ledger page. This section has been provided so one may also see the annual cost for this particular line item in the Coroner’s Budget. Please look for line item # 01020176207, titled “Cellular Phone” which I circled for both bills researched. The annual cost to taxpayers for having four cell phones for Mr. Toftoy and his employees is listed at the bottom of this line item of this section. Below are some more links on Kendall Coroner’s Office Expenses we taxpayers already have paid for.

It makes you wonder if anyone in Kendall County Government is actually watching how our tax dollars are spent and it begs the question, if this is small potatoes, what is happening with the big potatoes? Maybe the need for a county auditor should be reconsidered; I know I could sure use the help.

http://www.todd4kendall.org/resources/toftoyexpense.pdf  See Page 6 of 43 thru page 43 of 43.

http://www.todd4kendall.org/resources/ls022312toftoy.pdf
= Not True, just Tax Payer Approved

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