Niles Library’s spending on lawyers jumped from $8,000 to $137,000 even as it cut key expenses
Water started dripping from the ceiling into the Niles-Maine District Library’s Adult Services Department one day last August, leaving librarians scrambling to contain it. Back in 2020, the library board had budgeted funds for roof replacement, but a new group of trustees who were elected in Spring 2021—after campaigning on spending cuts—joined a sitting trustee in a vote to cancel the roof expenditure.
That group of trustees, which includes Library Board President Carolyn Drblik, Treasurer Joe Makula, Secretary Suzanne Schoenfeldt and former trustee Olivia Hanusiak, who resigned in August 2021, has brought penny-pinching to almost every area of the library’s budget. They have moved to reduce how frequently the library gets cleaned, questioned expenditures for notepads and implemented a 19-month hiring freeze that reduced staffing levels by 37%, according to previous and current reporting.
Meanwhile, they’ve allowed one line item to increase 417% in a single year, to a level that dwarfs neighboring libraries: legal fees.
Trustees Becky Keane and Dianne Olson and Vice President Patti Rozanski have opposed Drblik, Makula and Schoenfeldt, advocating for traditional levels of spending to retain library services for patrons. Keane in particular has questioned the library’s relationship to, and spending on, lawyers.
While the overall library budget has dropped from $7.5 million in fiscal 2020 to $6.2 million in fiscal 2021, before going to $6.6 million in fiscal 2022, the institution’s legal expenditures have ballooned.
Publicly available financial statements reviewed by Pioneer Press show:
In the 2020 fiscal year, the library budgeted $7,728 for legal expenses but spent $50,474.
In the 2021 fiscal year, it budgeted $40,030 for legal expenses — a 417% increase over the preceding year — and spent $136,377.
In the 2022 fiscal year, it has budgeted $116,667 for legal expenses — another increase of 191% — and so far has spent $73,394, but has three months to go until the fiscal year ends June 30.
At the nearby Mount Prospect library, the budget for legal services was $10,000 for the 2022 fiscal year. As of December 2022, they had spent $2,388 of that money. In Des Plaines, the annual legal budget was $10,000 for the most recent fiscal year. As of January 31, 2023, they had spent none of that budget, according to financial statements.
When Pioneer Press asked Makula, Drblik and Schoenfeldt for comment, only Makula responded, emailing “A good deal of the legal spending is for attorneys negotiating with the union over our first union contract.”
Legal invoices, contracts and retainers obtained by Pioneer Press in a Freedom of Information request revealed four primary reasons for the increase in legal spending:
communications between trustees and staff
disagreements between trustees, including a lawsuit Makula filed seeking to unseat fellow trustee Keane saying she was illegally appointed; a judge ruled in Keane’s favor in December 2022
a policy initiated after Makula, Schoenfeldt and then-Trustee Hanusiak were elected that required all Freedom of Information Act requests to be reviewed by an attorney
negotiations that ensued when library employees established a union, in what they said was a response to the hiring freeze that Makula, Drblik, Schoenfelt and then-Trustee Hanusiak had voted to institute in 2021.
Greg Pritz, the former financial and business director of the Niles Library who resigned in December 2021, served as one of the three Freedom of Information Officers for the library.
In the final months of his time with the library, Pritz said his job changed dramatically.
“Before the board changed, we rarely employed attorneys to look at our responses to FOIA requests,” he told Pioneer Press/Chicago Tribune.
Concurrent with the policy stating all Freedom of Information Act requests was the adoption of another policy that stated all media inquiries needed to take the form of a Freedom of Information request.
Asked what a public institution gets out of employing attorneys to process all Freedom of Information Requests, Illinois Press Association President Don Craven said “they get to spend a lot of money on legal fees.”
Craven said “there are instances in which the FOIA officer who is not a lawyer should seek legal counsel when responding to a FOIA request.”
“But should that be routine? No,” he said.
Scrutinizing expenses
The increased spending on attorneys contrasts with trustees’ meticulous financial oversight in other areas of library operations.
A July 2022 email obtained through a Freedom of Information request shows that Makula and Schoenfeldt created a list of questions about library expenditures and individual checks.
A comment on Check #080908, worth $3,902.82, asked “why are we buying $142 of office supplies from Garvey when Walmart is cheaper?”
Library Director Cyndi Rademacher explained that the library has an account with Garvey that lets it pay lower rates for equipment, noting that a highlighter at Garvey costs $0.56 and would cost $0.57 at Walmart.
A comment by Schoenfeldt and Makula on a $1,500 check for Alldata LLC read “cancel this there are multiple YouTube and google sited free on this - is anyone using this? (sic)”
Rademacher replied that the database had been used “861 times in the last fiscal year for a cost per use of $1.76.”
A February 2023 email obtained through a Freedom of Information request shows a similar list in which an invoice from legal firm Clark Hill for $6,124.50 was not signed, eliciting questioning from Keane. Other checks that got particular attention included a $182.85 check for Valentines’ Day-themed promotional materials with a question from Schoenfeldt: “Why do we need Valentines Cards and Note pads?” (sic)
Rademacher wrote back that the expenditure was a “budgeted annual marketing promotion. A pick me up in the middle of winter. Offering patrons a way to communicate with the Library staff. The note pads are for the Patron Comment boxes around the Library.”
The trustees also initially refused to sign a check for two tickets to the Niles Chamber of Commerce luncheon, saying that spending wasn’t in the approved budget. Rademacher replied that she had paid for the tickets out of the professional development budget.
The trustees have also weighed in on line items like whether bathrooms need overnight cleaning, a disagreement that has sparked serious disagreements at board meetings.
In a February 2022 email to Rademacher, Makula asked why there was a January check written to Cintas Corporation, a cleaning service whose overnight work the trustees had specifically eliminated in the 2021-2022 budget.
“This current change in service did not automatically come about or happen, someone took this upon themselves to call them and make this change, or if they just showed up we’re not turned away by Staff (sic),” he wrote. “I certainly was not consulted on this matter.”
“Our Patrons and Taxpayers expect us to most effectively utilize the resources they have provided irregardless of the recommendations of other vested interests,” he wrote.
Clash over legal spending
How and how much the library uses its lawyers has been a consistent topic of discussion among trustees since the current board was seated in May 2021.
At the June 2021 board meeting, Trustee Becky Keane asked that a letter be read on her behalf outlining her suggestions and objections to the budget the board was considering at the time.
That 2021 letter, obtained by Pioneer Press in a Freedom of Information request, included a substantial treatment of the library’s legal spending.
“In 2019 the total spent for this line item was $7,675,” Keane wrote in 2021. “This year to date we have spent $29,037 and are projected to reach a total of $38,708. Why is there such an increase?”
Keane noted that $24,000 worth of that spending was due to Makula’s lawsuit against then-library director Susan Dove Lempke.
Keane’s questions about how the board uses its legal team underscored the already tense relationship between the two factions on the board.
On the heels of an explosive exchange in October in which trustees shouted at one another and accused each other of lying, Drblik wrote in an Oct. 20 email to Keane that “your lack of confidentiality in library matters and those of our library staff are an insult to the position of a trustee.”
Drblik went on to state that she spoke to library lawyers about many things.
“My conversations regarding union matters which encompass a wide range of factors are important and pertinent,” she wrote. “Whether I communicate with Lisa or Yvette depends on the timing and subject. What other reason could you possibly fabricate?”
