EDWARDSVILLE – Madison County Board Chairperson Kurt Prenzler's administration filed a counterclaim lawsuit against Madison County Auditor Rick Faccin.
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The purpose of the counterclaim is to remove restrictions on the county's financial information placed on the Prenzler Administration by Faccin's office. Prenzler and Madison County Administrator Doug Hulme filed the counterclaim in response to Faccin's lawsuit against the board. Their entire dispute is centered on access to the county's financial system. In a release from his office, Prenzler stated the county should not be “keeping the books secret.” In a response early Tuesday afternoon, Faccin said the Prenzler administration is under criminal investigation by the Illinois Attorney General's Office for alleged misuse of computers.
“I'm not turning in personal and private information on individuals, which could result, according to our legal counsel, into a class action lawsuit against the people of Madison County,” Faccin said. “This current administration is under criminal investigation. When that concludes, we can revisit this. This administration had its computers confiscated and the investigation is ongoing.”
Despite this investigation, Prenzler's administration has passed a resolution on March 20, which would allow its access to the USL financial software utilized by the county. Faccin said that resolution was not legally binding and sued the county to continue to deny access to the current administration.
“During the past two years, Faccin has promised to give us access,” Prenzler said. “But he keeps coming up with one excuse after another.”
The counterclaim presented by Prenzler's administration has claimed Faccin has not accessed financial information utilizing USL even once.
“I'm shocked,” Prenzler said. “He's been the auditor for almost 20 years, and he admitted never logging into the system, not once!”
Faccin also invoked his nearly two-decade tenure with the county – as he is now serving his fifth elected term.
“I have been elected five times as county auditor, during that time, there has never been any question of the integrity of this office,” Faccin said. “I'm going to act in the best interest of my constituents.”
As far as the business of running the county is concerned, Faccin said Prenzler and Hulme are both able to access enough relevant information to conduct county business, including budgeting. He specifically said he did not want to give them access to personal financial data of people to potential criminals.
“The financial records of the county are public information,” Hulme said in the release. “Access to this data is necessary for us to do our job.”
When asked if it had something to do with party lines – as Prenzler is a Republican and Faccin is a Democrat, Faccin said he would treat fellow Democrats the same way if they were under a similar criminal investigation. He did comment, however, the initial resolution passed by the county board for Prenzler to access the financial data was passed on party lines.
In the release, Hulme said other Illinois county administrators have at least “read-only” access to these files. Faccin agreed but stated those other counties likely did not have their administrations under an ongoing criminal investigation.
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