Watchdog: Park District director's home more expensive than reported

Director’s home really cost $183,000 to fix
August 18, 2006
By: James Fuller
Daily Herald Staff Writer

Wheaton Park District officials say they never tried to intentionally mislead the public. They just didn’t do their homework.

Last week, the Daily Herald reported the district spent $80,000 to remodel the home it owns at Arrowhead Golf Course for its executive director, Rob Robinson, to live in.

Faced with evidence suggesting that figure was far below the actual cost, parks officials have now acknowledged the remodeling price tag so far is $183,000. The board shared the higher number at a meeting Wednesday night after seeing a document obtained by the Daily Herald showing the true costs.

District spokeswoman Mary Perotti supplied the original $80,000 figure in response to an inquiry about the remodeling costs. That figure was supported by Robinson and clarified by board President Paul Fullerton, who said $80,000 was the amount in this fiscal year’s budget for the project.

At the time, Perotti said that quantifying what was spent before this fiscal year was nearly impossible because the district had switched to new accounting methods.

But the day after the $80,000 price tag was reported, the Daily Herald obtained a spreadsheet that contained dated, line-item expenses for work on the director’s house, complete with the account numbers for the payments.

Perotti confirmed Thursday the spreadsheet is nearly identical to a report generated by the district staff for commissioners the day the Daily Herald’s original report was published.

The spreadsheet was generated at the request of commissioners, Perotti said in explaining she only learned after the spreadsheet came to her attention that the $80,000 wasn’t the full cost.
Fullerton said there was no intent to mislead the public.

“It would be insane for us to think we’re going to tell you it’s $80,000 when it’s $180,000 because, eventually, you’re going to find it out, anyway,” he said. “What happened is nobody went and looked at the numbers. Nobody was actually looking at a spreadsheet and adding all the numbers together.”

Fullerton said he knew the actual costs were higher than $80,000, but he, like Perotti and Robinson, had not personally gone back to add up the costs.

“I didn’t know it was twice as much, but the numbers are what they are,” Fullerton said. “If people think we spent too much, then people should come to the meetings and tell us we’re not being frugal.”

Commissioners explained the remodeling costs at the Wednesday meeting. They said they felt obligated to renovate the house fully to keep a promise to Robinson before he became the new director last November.

Commissioners pitched the job with a four-bedroom, rent- and mortgage-free house as an optional part of the compensation package. The prior director, Bob Dunsmuir, lived in the house for years until his retirement in late 2005.

“We led (Robinson) to believe it was in move-in condition, and it clearly was not,” Fullerton said at the meeting.

Robinson’s contract requires him to live in the district. Leaving his former job in Colorado meant taking a pay cut from nearly $200,000 to his current pay of $132,000.

“If the housing isn’t part of the park job, I needed to know because I wouldn’t have considered the position,” he said.

The park district would have increased Robinson’s salary if he had not opted for the free housing, as to allow him to live in Wheaton.

After the offer, commissioners learned the house had “astronomical” damage, including a leaky roof, rodents, a hornets nest in the ceiling, mold and other structural maladies. Thus, the repairs were necessary, commissioners said.

And, they’re nearly complete. What remains is some landscaping and the construction of a new two-car garage.

Regardless of the promise to Robinson, the park board had already decided to keep the house and possibly use it for public meetings or retreats.