DuPage County auditor’s office requests help after nearly four years of dysfunction

For nearly four years, the DuPage County Auditor’s office has not provided a quarterly financial report, a detailed accounting of the county government’s revenues, appropriations, expenditures, and encumbrances.

The reports, which are mandated by the State of Illinois, came to a halt shortly after a razor thin election in 2020, in which the current auditor Bill White won by a 75-vote margin, later reduced to 58 votes following a recount against Bob Grogan.

Not long after the election, several key staff members from the auditor’s office resigned.

“We had a king-sized bed of obligations and a queen-sized sheet of resources,” White said during Tuesday’s county board meeting. “Our target is to complete the quarterly reports by the end of July, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way, the manual way.”

The auditor’s office was offered additional staff, according to DuPage County Board Chair Deborah Conroy, but the real hindrance was technology.

Going forward the auditor’s office is requesting additional software to help automate the reporting process, White said. But some county board members were left questioning why it has taken so long to get up to speed.

“If you needed help why didn’t you come to the board … four years without quarterly reports, it is unacceptable,” District 5 Commissioner Dawn DeSart said during the meeting.

Every year the county receives an external audit report from the Chicago-based accounting firm Baker Tilly, however, these reports lack the detailed examination expected from the auditor’s office.

“The internal audit looks way more into the minuscule, detailed items, plus the external auditor does not detect fraud … this is where our internal auditor comes in,” District 1 Commissioner Cindy Cahill said during Tuesday’s meeting.

Also delayed is the auditor’s report on the county clerk’s office, which came under the scrutiny of the board and DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office, after $224,000 in invoices submitted for purchases were not properly approved or made without going through a bidding process .

The report cannot be publicly released until the clerk’s office receives and has a chance to reply to its contents, according to White. The clerk’s office will have a week to respond, White said.

“We need it done, the people of Dupage need it done, this is what you’re elected to do and frankly there’s no excuse,” Cahill said.