| Cicero Township Trustees of Schools, Township 39N, Range 13E Township School Trustee Vote for 1 (Full 6-year Term) William (Bill) B. Sullivan Punch 350 William (Bill) B. Sullivan Candidate for Township School Trustee PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND I am 38 years old and a lifelong resident of Oak Park, Illinois. I am a 1984 graduate of Oak Park and River Forest High School. In 1989, I graduated from the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign with a Bachelor of Arts in Music and a Bachelor of Arts in History. In 1992, I received my Juris Doctor from DePaul University College of Law. I have practiced law in Oak Park for over twelve years and am the Owner and Principal of the Law Offices of William B. Sullivan in Oak Park. I am also a licensed real estate broker and the Owner of Wm. B. Sullivan Realty & Co. in Oak Park. Additionally, I am an Adjunct Professor of Law at DePaul University College of Law, having taught an upper-level law course in Real Estate Transactions in 2002. I am the Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Oak Park and River Forest High School Alumni Association and am directly responsible for establishing three scholarship programs at area high schools that will award over $20,000 to deserving students in 2005. I have also served on the Board of Directors of the Oak Park Area Arts Council and the Board of Governors of the West Suburban Bar Association Board of Governors. I served on the Oak Park Township Senior Services Committee for many years and have volunteered as a youth baseball coach with Oak Park Youth Baseball. I am an active member of St. Catherine of Siena – St. Lucy parish in Oak Park and have been a member of The Cliffdwellers Club in Chicago since 2002. AN OVERVIEW OF THE OFFICE OF CICERO TOWNSHIP TRUSTEES OF SCHOOLS The Cicero Township School Treasurer’s Office is located in Downtown Oak Park and invests hundreds of millions of tax dollars each year on behalf of the citizens of Oak Park, Berwyn, and Cicero. There are three members of the Cicero Township Trustees of Schools Board who govern the Cicero Township School Treasurer’s Office. One member resides in Cicero, another member resides in Berwyn, and a third member resides in Oak Park. The Trustee currently representing Oak Park is not seeking reelection and thus I am running to fill the Oak Park Trustee’s vacancy. Many voters have never heard of the Office of Cicero Township Trustees of Schools. The Cicero Township School Treasurer’s Office collects, invests, and distributes all federal, state, county, and local tax monies on behalf of all public schools in Oak Park, Berwyn, and Cicero and owns all of the real estate upon which all public schools in Oak Park, Berwyn, and Cicero are located. The annual budget of the Cicero Township School Treasurer’s Office is hundreds of millions of dollars and is therefore much larger than even the budgets of the Village of Oak Park, the City of Berwyn, and the Town of Cicero. The Office of the Cicero Township Trustees of Schools is a very important governmental division that does not receive much attention or publicity. CAMPAIGN POSITIONS When elected, I will seek to improve communications between the Office of the Treasurer of Cicero Township Trustees of Schools and the school district business offices it governs pertaining to financial reporting issues. The Cicero Township Trustees of Schools Office is responsible for, inter alia, processing disbursements and payrolls, helping with recognition and projection of revenues, making debt service payments and tracking compliance, investing funds, assistance with paying employer taxes, and the reporting of total expenditures for all public elementary and secondary school districts in Oak Park, Cicero, and Berwyn. The Treasurer’s Office, at times, seems to have had difficulty in answering questions and communicating information to the business offices of the Oak Park, Cicero, and Berwyn school districts. I would advocate regular quarterly meetings (or monthly meetings, if necessary) between the Treasurer’s Office and each school district business office to ensure that monthly financial statements between the Treasurer’s Office and school district records are properly reconciled, that information the Treasurer’s Office keeps about school district funds is accurate and timely, and to allow each school district access to bank account information for each school district’s bank accounts . When elected, I will advocate conducting an independent operations/procedural audit of office procedures in the Office of \the Treasurer of Cicero Township Trustees of Schools in an attempt to avoid unnecessary and cumbersome duplication of services and efforts between the Treasurer’s Office and school district business offices. Each school district business office within the jurisdiction of the Office of the Treasurer of Cicero Township Trustees of Schools faces intangible difficulties each month in trying to ensure timely and accurate reconciliation of two sets of financial information (the deposit and investment information each school district business office received monthly from the Treasurer’s Office and the day-to-day disbursement information kept by the business offices of each school district). This is causing an unnecessary and cumbersome duplication of efforts. I would advocate conducting an independent operations/procedural audit of office procedures in the Office of the Treasurer of Cicero Township Trustees of Schools will give the Office objective feedback as to whether or not its daily business operations are efficient and consistent with the procedures and operations of the school district business offices. When elected, I will seek to ensure that more monies held by the Office of the Treasurer of Cicero Township Trustees of Schools are invested in local financial institutions. The Treasurer’s Office controls as much as $400 million in funds each year from the six school districts that are subject to the jurisdiction of the Treasurer’s Office. A review of the financial statements of the Treasurer’s Offices reveals that only a small portion of the $400 million invested by the Treasurer’s Office is invested in local financial institutions. I would advocate more investment in local financial institutions in Oak Park, Berwyn, and Cicero, since the monies collected and invested by the Treasurer’s Office are for the benefit of the residents of Oak Park, Berwyn, and Cicero. |
