The Glenview Watch

Based on newspaper accounts in Daytona Beach, Florida, local government is having financial problems, and last year state auditors found a fair number of violations in the way Daytona Beach had done business. They said the community misused TIF money, bought one piece of land for more than its assessed value and acquired another parcel without having it assessed.

Since 2005, Ricardo Kisner had served as the community’s chief financial officer, so The Watch was puzzled when Glenview’s Village Manager Todd Hileman announced he was hiring Kisner to replace retiring finance chief Dan Wiersman.

Hileman says he shared our concerns until he paid a visit to Daytona Beach to talk with Kisner’s former boss and other department heads. “I wanted to look them in the eye and hear what they had to say,” Hileman explains. “The job of finance director is as important as the police chief, so we spent a lot of time researching Rick. He interviewed well. He had a lot of great technical skills, but we wanted to be sure.”

In the end, Hileman concluded that Kisner was an exceptional man caught in a bad situation. Daytona Beach council members are elected from districts rather than at large, and Hileman contends that form of govenment has turned the town into a “political hotbed,” where in-fighting is the norm, and reform is difficult.

As in Glenview under former Village Manager Paul McCarthy, each department head in Daytona Beach is responsible for his or her own budget, and that may also make it harder for top city officials to get a grip on how money is spent.

Kisner, a native of Detroit, quickly decided Daytona Beach was not his kind of town. At work, he was frustrated by the slow pace of change. “It was a very laid back community, and it wasn’t really going anywhere. I could have blended in, but I didn’t want to do that,” he explains.

Kisner says he undertook an audit of the department one year before the state came in, so he was aware of many problems the state identified. Unfortunately, he says, he was not always able to change government practices. Land purchases, for example, were handled by the support services director. All Kisner did was cut the check.

Kisner has an MBA from the University of Michigan, experience in the corporate world, and he’s a CPA who shares Hileman’s commitment to accounting and planning methods used by the private sector.

“Our business models were 20 years out of date,” Hileman says of his early days in Glenview. “We could not maintain the level of staffing that we had. It was quickly becoming clear that our fund balance was in danger.”

Hileman warned village staffers that they would have to make changes. “It was the first time people were hearing this. They didn’t understand what I was doing. It was a shock to the system. I don’t believe in sugar coating these things,” he says.

Since then, Hileman has been trying to change the culture at Village Hall and overhaul business practices. That may have been a factor in the decision by former finance director Dan Wiersma to leave. “A lot of people are uncomfortable,” Hileman says.

More likely, he adds, experienced managers, like Wiersma and Public Works Director Bill Porter, opted to take early retirement, because it was to their financial advantage. Fully vested, Hileman says, they are “young enough to go out and get another job or consult” while collecting a village pension.

Kisner likes what he sees in Glenview. “I wanted to work in a community that holds government to a high standard. My role is to be the watchdog, the nay sayer. It’s not my job to give good news,” he says.

Over the next few months, he may be saying “nay” a lot. Village employees now enjoy as many as 26 days of vacation and unlimited sick leave – the product of “years and years of trying to keep unions out,” Hileman says. Recently, Village Hall reduced the amount of comp time employees could take from 240 hours to 80. “That decision has greatly improved productivity,” he says.

The village is also trying to figure out what to do with the Maine Water Company, a business purchased by the McCarthy Administration – expected to be a cash cow for Glenview. Instead, the utility is operating in the red, and Hileman has ordered an analysis of its operations to be completed later this summer.

Hileman and Kisner will also be working to keep Trustees Paul Detleffs and Phil White happy. They come from the corporate world and have not been pleased with the way Glenview managed its money. “They are as qualified as [Kisner] to be Glenview’s CFO,” Hileman says.

He believes Detleffs and White are satisfied with the changes they’ve seen so far, and Hileman claims to be sleeping better at night. “I’m feeling more comfortable about staffing levels. The quarter percent sales tax has helped shore up our future, and The Glen is doing fine – getting stronger every year. The office park there is huge,” he concludes.

A Cook County judge has ordered Glenview to hear more testimony in the case of officer Melanie Meyer, who was fired last fall. Judge Nancy Jo Arnold issued the order during a hearing on Meyer’s lawsuit against the village.

After Meyer was terminated, Glenview’s police chief offered Sgt. David Sostak a six-month suspension for the same offense Meyer had committed.

Sostak collected overtime for attending six Cook County Circuit Court sessions, even though tickets he wrote were not scheduled for prosecution.

Meyer contended it was common practice for Glenview officers to go to court, since schedules issued beforehand were often inaccurate, and legitimate tickets would be dismissed if the issuing officer was not on hand.

The police department contends it offered Meyer the same deal it gave Sostak, but she refused to admit she had “stolen” money by putting in for overtime pay.

Officer Nick Aiken, Meyer’s husband, has resigned after 28 years on the force. Sources tell the Watch he would have faced charges of perjury for testifying on her behalf had he not agreed to step down.

The Board of Fire and Police Commissioners is not expected to reverse its decision on Meyer’s firing, but new testimony could improve Meyer’s chance of