Sangamon Valley Water District cancels illegal gift card giving; Blames watchdogs

Sangamon Valley Public Water District | Sangamon Valley Public Water District

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen, Edgar County Watchdogs

Dec 28, 2022

In November we received a tip about the Sangamon Valley Public Water District’s (“SVPWD”) announcement of a gift card give-a-way, consisting of $200 gift cards given to 16 “needy” families.

Knowing this to be an impermissible gifting of public funds, we posited some questions to the district, asking what authority grants them permission to gift these public funds, which fund the monies are coming out of, and board minutes where the board approved the gifting of public funds.

The first response from water district employee Kerry Gifford indicated that the Illinois EPA gave millions of dollars in grants to the SVPWD, and they earmarked some of it to give away to residents.

We then asked the Illinois EPA if their grants were to be used for giving grant money to private individuals, the IEPA response indicated no grant authorized the gifts.

When we inquired again to the SVPWD about what we learned from the IEPA, Gifford responded and accused me of “taking what I said out of context and attempting to turn it around against me to my board.”

Gifford did not respond when asked to clarify anything taken out of context.

Instead, like something out of the mouth of an angry child who got the smaller piece of birthday cake, Gifford caused the SVPWD’s webpage and Facebook page to cast “blame” on us for questioning their unlawful gifting of public funds.

In Gifford’s mind, we caused him to seek legal counsel, who told him he could not gift away public funds, but it is still our fault for asking in the first place.

We did get a good laugh out of the posting on SVPWD’s webpage, as the end result was compliance with the law.

If anyone knows of any public body in Illinois, that gave away gift cards to employees or anyone else during the Christmas holiday season, we would love to know about it, so drop us a line.

When public bodies start giving taxpayer money away it’s a clear indicator they are taxing beyond their need for the services being provided. Maybe in the future, they would reduce tax levies or fees being charged so that everyone is treated equally.

This story was originally published by Edgar County Watchdogs. Read the original HERE.