Pekau lies about village audits and falsely attacks Mendoza to deflect from his own failures

Pekau wants to make it look like his failure to file two annual financial audits for 2022 and 2023 is not a big deal, is routine & he is being picked on for political reasons. What is Pekau hiding?

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Orland Park Finances/Monday, Nov. 18, 2024

Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau failed to file two annual financial audits, one for 2022 and one for 2023, and is behind in preparing to file the 2024 financial audit.

There are two reasons for a municipality like Orland Park, which has a healthy budget and the money and finances to easily pay for annual audits so that they are not late.

1 - Pekau doesn’t want to admit he dropped the ball because he has no real financial experience, or;

2 - Pekau is intentionally withholding the two annual financial audits because the audits might show his massive overspending, financial mismanagement or millions in debt. Was Pekau intentionally delaying their release until after the April election to hide this, but got caught?

Either way, it is embarrassing. It’s embarrassing for the village. It’s embarrassing for the village’s employees. It’s embarrassing for the village’s financial department. It’s embarrassing for the taxpayers. It’s really embarrassing for a mayor who claims he is fiscally responsible and doing a good job. Of course, we all know that from Pekau’s bullying conduct at board meetings, he is not transparent nor accountable to the public.

Pekau tried to keep all this a secret but I blew the whistle on his failures in my July 16, 2024 column on his failed audits. CLICK HERE.

Mendoza’s office sanctioned Orland Park for failing to file those two annual financial audits and will suspend all revenue “off-sets” due to the village, estimated to be about $120,000.

What do the “off-set” suspensions entail?

If Orland Park Police ticket you for speeding and you don't pay; if the village gets a court judgement against you for failure to pay a city fee; We can off-set your state income tax refund or other state payments such as lottery winnings you may have coming to you and send that money to the Village of Orland Park. We send Orland about $120,000 a year in such offsets. The judgments are still there, so if Orland comes into compliance, they could theoretically get all those offsets once we resume payments to them. 

It’s a black mark for the Village of Orland Park which has prided itself on its professional financial management and transparency, consistently providing information on spending, debt, taxes to village taxpayers. Without the annual audits, taxpayers would be unable to know how Pekau is spending their money. Is he doing it properly or improperly? Or, is he dragging the village into serious financial debt?

Pekau attacked Mendoza for sanctioning him, accusing her of playing politics. But in fact, Mendoza was protecting the rights of the taxpayers and public who deserve to know how their money is being spent.

In his Nov. 5, 2024 political eNewsletter, Pekau responded by misrepresenting the facts. CLICK HERE to listen to Pekau pretend Mendoza’s actions are not important.

Instead of acknowledging that he failed to file TWO Annual Financial Audits for the village, Pekau addressed one, the 2022 audit. He blamed the failed filing on village employees saying they were late in filing the 2021. There were staff changeovers. The auditors merged. “They,” not him, caused the delay.

Well, that could easily have been taken care of in months by any experienced mayor with sound financial experience and a concern for the taxpayers. But not Pekau, who has delayed the audits more than two years.

Pekau claimed that failing to file annual audits is commonplace, noting that 75 governments have also failed to file their 2022 audits while 200 have failed to file their 2023 audits.

He wants you to think that failing to file the audits on time is a common problem that everyone experiences. But the truth is that 75 unfiled audits in 2022 and 200 unfiled audits in 2023 represents an extremely small number of unfiled audits in the Illinois.

Each year, the Mendoza’s office receives and makes public 9,200 financial audits for counties, municipalities, and special taxing districts across the state, including TIFs.

The Comptroller describes the action as rare and suggested Orland Park’s troubles go beyond the normal challenges other municipalities face when they fail to file their annual audits. (The problem mostly involves poorer communities with financial problems. Audits cost money, thus the fear Orland Park has financial problems Pekau is hiding.)

Rather than admitting his failure as the guardian of the financial interests of Orland Park taxpayers, Pekau tried to blur the issue by getting two letters written in his defense. Nether letter shed any light on the mayor’s embarrassing financial failures.

The first letter was from Illinois Municipal League CEO Brad Cole who insisted Orland Park has consistently filed its financial audits on time — really a reflection of the financial and fiscal responsibility of Pekau’s predecessor, former Mayor Dan McLaughlin.

All that Cole’s letter says is the village, since being cited, is working with Mendoza’s office on the one audit for 2022, as a result of her quick responsibility to defend the rights of the taxpayers of Orland Park.

It’s far from a defense of Pekau’s failure to file two annual audits.

But Pekau also got his political crony, controversy-plagued Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison, to write a letter that tries to defend Pekau’s unprofessional tardiness, too.

SEAN MORRISON AND HIS DEFENSELESS DEFENSE OF PEKAU

What is a Morrison letter worth? Not much in my book.

Morrison has sent out letters in the past. One letter Morrison sent went out on Oct. 2, 2014 addressed to Cook County Judge John Hynes, urging leniency for Anthony Martin, a senior manager at Morrison Security who was charged with sexually harassing a 14-year-old girl who was at Morrison’s home during a pool party. CLICK HERE TO READ THAT LETTER.

The accused sexual predator, Anthony Martin, was a manager at Morrison Security. Morrison’s letter argued Martin was important to the company and was needed: “due to the trust I have with him (Martin) and his long tenure with me.” Martin had more “work” to do for the Morrison Security company, like traveling to do represent Morrison’s company in Colorado.

However, at the time Morrison sent his letter to Judge Hynes, Martin did travel to Colorado on Morrison Security business. While there, Martin continued his sexual harassment of what he thought was an underage, 14 year old girl, in even more vulgar language than before. The 14-year-old target turned out to be a Colorado Police investigator. Martin was arrested, again, as a sexual predator, only 19 days after Morrison sent his letter to the judge.

Oops!

If I ever need a letter, I’m not going to ask for one from Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison, that’s for sure.

You can read all about the Anthony Martin sexual predator scandal by CLICKING THIS LINK.

Morrison even exaggerated another point in his letter claiming that Mendoza’s office failed to filed her financial audits for 2023. That’s actually not true. Mendoza has properly filed all her financial documents for her office on time. CLICK HERE.

The processing is done by the state and the state process for documenting that data was late by a few months, not Mendoza.

But Pekau, as we can see, is not a Mayor who cares about facts.

We are also talking about a State process being a few months late in one single year, not a village that has failed for TWO YEARS to file annual two annual financial audits. Although a few hundred governments fail to file their audits each year (that’s out of 9,200 governments a year) it is extremely rare, and unprofessional when a village government fails to file two financial audits! Two Years late! It’s unheard of.

ORLAND PARK IS IN FINANCIAL CRISIS

Pekau attempts to play the political card because Mendoza is a respected statewide officeholder who happens to be a Democrat. Pekau claims that she attacked him to help Jim Dodge, who Pekau, at the time, claimed was a candidate for Mayor against Pekau. (Dodge did announce his intention to run for mayor but only AFTER the Pekau Financial Audit scandal surfaced (reported by me right here) and brought embarrassment to the taxpayers of Orland Park.)

Pekau is good at fudging dates and timelines like he is at fudging facts.

Oh, and Dodge is a Republican, probably more of a true Republican than Pekau could ever be, and his candidacy, that is now official, is gaining momentum specifically because Pekau is so terrible as a village mayor.

Pekau can’t be trusted with your tax dollars or to focus on his responsibilities as a municipal officer. Just like anything he says in his political eNewsletter can’t be trusted to be anything else except political mumbo jumbo.