East Central Reporter

A political activist group is taking issue with how quickly Shelby County Board members recently passed an audit that the group claims, among other things, "exposes payroll fraud (and) noncompliance with laws and regulations."

The 26 minutes the audit was presented to the board and then approved during the board's June 3 meeting wasn't long enough, Kirk Allen, writer and founder of Edgar County Watchdogs, argued in an article posted to the group's website.

"There is no way a county board can review an entire audit in 26 minutes," Allen said in the article. "In counties with any sense of leadership, they would hold a meeting for the audit to be presented and then come back at a later time after board members had time to digest the findings and prepare questions for the auditor."

Shelby County Board | Contributed photo

That isn't what happens in Shelby County, "where Chairman Bruce Cannon has not received a thing from the auditors since the last time he talked with them a year ago according to his statement during the presentation," Allen's article continued. "We can only wonder why he never contacted them during this time frame."

The audit's findings "are most telling" given concerns raised by the County Treasurer Erica Firnhaber during a committee meeting months ago "only to be to shut up by the Chairman," the article said.

Allen's article referred to audio from the committee meeting included in a previous Edgar County Watchdogs article, published in January, in which Cannon is heard telling the county treasurer to "shut up." The comment comes at about the 21:35 mark in the audio.

Allen said in his article that he also found it "of interest" that the audit didn't mention an Illinois State Police investigation into "payroll fraud issues" by the Shelby County Sheriff's Department.

"We know the Chairman is aware of it because he mentioned that fact during a prior meeting," Allen said in his article. "You would think that might be important information to share with your auditors but it appears that did not happen. It also appears the Chairman failed to inform the auditors of his illegal compensation received."

Cannon still owes the county "upwards of a couple of thousand dollars" for alleged improper compensation, the article said. "Maybe that should be part of the criminal investigation?"