Does the Kane County Board Chairmanship come with a license to print campaign cash?
Karen McConnaughay must think so.
So many county vendors became campaign contributors that the Daily Herald Editorial Board wrote, “We encourage McConnaughay to quit taking money from county vendors…”
She’s now running for state senate on a track record of presiding over a legalized money laundering scheme™. Here are the details–
In 2004, McConnaughay won election as Kane County Board Chairperson. From 2004-2009, the salary of Phil Bus- county development director- was spiked 71% from $93,481 to $158,923, graph.
Then Phil Bus retired (2009) on the largest pension in Kane County history- $113,277/ year, proof. The salary spiking had padded his pension. But only two months later, Bus was re-hired by the county on lucrative consulting contracts. Look up FoxPlans, LLC by year, here.
Sourced by a local newspaper, Bus’ wife and brother (Randall) contributed $9,300 in campaign cash to McConnaughay. We confirmed $4800 from the state board website.
The Bus brother Randall’s engineering company, according to published reports, became the “go-to consultant on almost every unincorporated county subdivision plan”. We sourced tens of thousands of dollars in “consulting” payments flowing from Kane County.
Karen McConnaughay’s political paradigm isn’t new to the GOP. Governors Thompson-Edgar-Ryan pioneered the patronage model. The Republican Party then split between political bosses who needed taxes to fund patronage, and our conservative, productive, tax-paying base.
You can’t reform Illinois if you don’t reform the IL GOP. And, you can’t reform the Republican Party if you elect politicians like Karen McConnaughay.
Have we had enough of this yet? It’s the political machine in Illinois that must be destroyed.
Kudos to Adam Andrzejewski for bringing this to the light of day.