Amid controversy, 2 leave Ford-Iroquois Public Health Department

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Ousted Ford-Iroquois Public Health Administrator Doug Corbett has accepted a buyout for the remaining weeks of his contract and a top assistant, Julie Clark, has resigned effective Friday.

Both have come under fire over a $123,000 no-bid contract awarded to a firm owned by Clark’s husband, Stanley Clark, to install solar energy equipment on health department buildings in Watseka and Paxton.

Both also were defendants in a lawsuit the health department settled last week with the Edgar County Watchdogs for violation of the Illinois Public Information Act. The suit requires the department to pay the public interest group $1,000 and acknowledge violation of the act.

Controversy within the health department surfaced at the beginning of the year when a plan to provide home healthcare in Indiana became public although the department's charter limits it to providing service in Ford and Iroquois counties.

The Indiana move was stopped. Then the health board decided to drop home healthcare entirely because it is available from other providers and the department lost heavily doing it.

Corbett has been administrator since March 2008. His buyout agreement, which Iroquois County officials received on Monday, will pay him $15,876 for the remainder of his contact, which ends Nov. 30, Iroquois County Board Chairman Rod Copas confirmed. However, Corbett was removed from the $89,000 job in early August, with pay through Nov. 30, and has been off the job since then. His pay for that period amounts to $29,700.

Clark has worked for the health department for most of the last 25 years. She started in 1988, but left for 11 months for another job, then returned. Her functions have included community health planner, tobacco program coordinator, quality adviser and public information officer.

Asked who has been running the department, Copas laughed a bit, then said: “the management team is kind of in charge of all the daily work of their departments. .... There is a lot of infighting. People think they’re in charge that aren’t. It’s the nature of the beast.”

With Corbett having signed the buyout agreement, the health board will look for an interim administrator. He said the consensus at Monday’s health board meeting was that a different firm will be hired to conduct a search for Corbett's replacement.

The department also is undergoing a forensic audit that Copas said will cost $50,000 to $60,000.

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Suspended Manchester Public Works Director calls charges 'baseless'

MANCHESTER — Suspended Public Works Director Stephen Stanziano on Wednesday called charges of insubordination and neglected duties leveled against him by township officials as ?baseless.?

?What was done today (Tuesday) was illegal, the charges were baseless and all of the participants in this carnival sideshow will be held accountable,? Stanziano said in a prepared statement issued after a township hearing Tuesday about the charges. Stanziano and his attorney Ronald Lueddeke did not attend the hearing.

Township officials held a hearing Tuesday to determine Stanziano?s future with the township.

Stanziano, a 56-year-old Toms River resident, was suspended May 10 with pay after township officials made claims that he was insubordinate and neglected his duties as public work director during the last year.

During the hearing Tuesday, Joseph Veni, a township engineer, testified Stanziano asked him to ?fudge? numbers on federal paperwork and make repairs to his parents? roof during work hours. Stanziano and Lueddeke notified officials Monday night that they would not attend the hearing. Lueddeke protested the hearing, contending it did not follow proper protocol.

?I can hold my head high through all of this,? Stanziano said in his statement.

Stanziano, who was paid $132,633 in 2012, has been an employee of the department since July 1995, according to township records.

?For more than 18 years I have been a dedicated public servant to the residents of Manchester. This isn?t over, not even close to being over,? Stanziano said.

Hearing officer John J. Mercun, an attorney, will submit a written report in the coming weeks detailing his recommendation on Stanziano?s employment to the Township Council and mayor. The township governing body will then have the final say on whether Stanziano keeps his job.

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