LOYAL. LOCAL. COMPLETE.
Just one month after Paris-Union District 95 first claimed a nearly $740,000 property tax collection shortfall, the issue remains under scrutiny—and debate. While initial reports pointed to administrative confusion and a possible “mishandling” in the county’s tax collection process, new perspectives have emerged, shifting the narrative.
At the Monday, July 14 school board meeting, Superintendent Mary Morgan Ryan reiterated the district’s commitment to transparency and diligence on all financial matters, opening the floor to attorney Scott Ginsburg, a partner at Robbins Schwartz. Ginsburg was quick to admit the investigation into the alleged shortfall has become more complex since his initial report.
“Last month, we were worried … we put up a bunch of theories that we told you could have accounted for why money was missing. We tried to be perfectly clear and we did not accuse any person of wrongdoing or any public official of doing anything that would have purposefully resulted in people not receiving money. We just had to figure out where that money went,” Ginsburg said.
The attorney reassured the concerned school board that “three-quarters of a million dollars is not missing,” however, he did point to several “administrative irregularities” on the county level.
Two of Ginsburg’s previous theories, software limitations and timing issues, are what he now believes are the root causes of the issue, as well as a lack of paperwork provided to the district.
“The school district was never given a settlement sheet … The school district was taking what it received in a fiscal year and assuming that was the number that it was getting from the actual extension that year, and that was incorrect. They were taking receipt numbers when they should have taken the reconciled numbers, and they were doing that because the reconciled numbers were never provided (by the county),” Ginsburg said. “The school district made assumptions they shouldn’t have made. Had they not made those assumptions and asked the right questions, then they probably would have gotten the right answers.”
“They can’t be completely blameworthy, because generally, there should have been a document provided to them, one that provided that information, and that document did not exist,” the attorney added.
After a detailed presentation, Ginsburg claimed the county had failed to complete particular tax forms for several years and that abatements had been improperly calculated, impacting the district’s budget and creating the initial red flags that were raised around money that appeared to be missing.
According to Ginsburg, a PTAX-25TA is an abatement form that county clerks must file with the Illinois Department of Revenue. Prior to his investigation, the form had not been filed in Edgar County since 2011.
The attorney explained that the lack of forms impacts both the district’s fiscal budget planning and evidence-based funding the district could, and should, receive. He also cited certificates of error to apply for abatements after taxes were calculated as a reason for potential EAV discrepancies with the Illinois State Board of Education.
“Edgar County did not provide any kind of reconciliation to Paris school districts. So the school district couldn’t rely on how much money it received, and what its actual collection rate was, the collection rate being the percentage of collections compared with the extension,” he said, noting that the district should be receiving 98 to 99 percent of taxes collected, but the district’s documentation made it appear that they were only collecting around 93 percent.
“The county has gone back now and provided those documents, but those documents going back five years are going to be dated July of 2025, meaning they had to go back and do the work now,” Ginsburg said. “Moving forward, we want to make sure that Edgar County provides that reconciliation or settlement sheet so that each year the school business official has the correct information to provide the Bond Council, so we can accurately look at how much the actual rate collection rate was.”
Ginsburg credited several county employees, calling them “extremely cooperative.”
“I give a lot of credit to the county, we’re in the middle of summer with vacations and serious health issues with high-ranking officials in the county,” he said. “But they haven’t shirked their responsibility, and they have owned up to the fact that this needs to be done. They’ve done it fast, and we really appreciate that.”
Ginsburg closed his presentation, stating that “We have verification that the district has collected almost all of the money that it should have, and the amount that was collected was consistent with what other districts and similarly sized counties would have collected.” He recommended the district work closely with the county to ensure proper tax reporting and collection moving forward, with minimal recourse for past discrepancies.
When asked why the scenario initially looked so much worse than it was, Ginsburg pointed to “administrative unclarity in the way abatements were reported and calculated.” When further questioned by members of the school board about what the standard practices are at a state and county level, the attorney said there should be a “clear, reconciled document given to school districts, especially when school districts are required to sign off on it.”
“That document should be as accurate as possible, so the school district can rely upon it for the sake of understanding how much money they’re going to get. And the county was not giving the school district something that helped them understand how much money they were going to get,” Ginsburg said. “There was a gap, and the gap was abatement. So the gap was based upon the certificates of error and failure to estimate poor collection losses of bond and debt services.”
“So there is a standard, but the standard wasn’t delivered?” Greg Sabens asked.
“That’s a fair statement,” Ginsburg responded, later adding that “If we did this kind of deep dive into every county in Illinois, who knows what this would show. But, in our experience, this has never caused a huge question.”
Also present at the meeting was state’s attorney Philip Dobelstein, who rebutted Ginsburg’s claims, clarifying that there “were never any missing funds.”
“To counter the June 9 presentation that was made to this board, the $740,000 shortfall is certainly not real, and we draw issue with its documentation,” Dobelstein said.
Dobelstein pointed to “collection numbers from different sources” as the error that led to the district’s belief it had not received the funds that were promised.
“Tonight, I can report the very good news, and I can say it with unequivocal clarity that there is no $740,000 missing. It was not, not dispersed. It was not, not collected. The (missing) money, we believe, was an error in reporting and an error in how it was documented on the report used to calculate the collection shortfall,” he said.
The state’s attorney’s findings came after he enlisted the assistance of Ben Lueken from Lueken & Sackrider, who discovered a discrepancy in the line items and order in which numbers were placed in the district’s Bond Disclosure Report.
“It is our position that discrepancies on the bond disclosure report were what caused the appearance of the collection protocol,” Dobelstein said. He provided a detailed column comparison that showcased multiple classifications, distributions, abatements and amounts payable to the district over the past six years.
“We noticed that somehow the numbers got mixed up and got placed in (a differing) line, and so it gave a lower number,” Dobelstein explained. “What we determined was that the actual collective properties are the next column over … The numbers aren’t exact, but that number appears to be the same number that was provided for the previous year’s audit collection number. Using the previous year’s numbers in what they believed was the collection of that levy year, created the sense that there was a shortfall, as far as those documents were concerned, but the shortfall didn’t exist, and the money was never missing.”
In a follow-up conversation with members of The Press, Dobelstein was quick to support the work of both the county and the district.
“I understand that there have been other discussions with the county officials regarding changes in procedure and practices, and I will continue to help facilitate communication and changes that are needed, but with this, I believe we can put to bed the idea that there ever was a collection shortfall,” Dobelstein said. “I’d like to thank everyone who worked together and cooperated in getting this issue resolved, with a special thank you to Ben Lueken for his diligence and thoroughness in getting to the bottom of this issue.”
The school board did not reveal when they plan to revisit the topic at the next meeting in August; however, Morgan Ryan did issue a statement directly to The Prairie Press on the issue.
“The District appreciates the time and effort county officials have invested in researching these important issues,” Morgan Ryan said. “Having accurate data from them is crucial for how we plan our finances, also, including how the State calculates the amount of assistance it gives to us. We look forward to continued collaboration.”