County board votes to censure Danos

May 24—URBANA — After at least a month of discussion on the subject, the Champaign County Board has voted to censure county auditor George Danos for alleged failure to act as an "independent watchdog" of taxpayer funds and actions "unbecoming an elected official."

The Champaign County Board voted Thursday night to approve the censure resolution.

"The actions of Champaign County Auditor, George P. Danos, have created a work environment the County Board does not condone or support," the resolution states. "... The Champaign County Board seeks to make Champaign County government a safe working environment, free of harassment and misconduct for all employees."

Voting for the resolution: Elly Hanauer-Friedman, Jennifer Locke, Jenny Lokshin, Diane Michaels, Don Owen, Emily Rodriguez, Jilmala Rogers, Ed Sexton, Mike Smith, Chris Stohr, Jennifer Straub, Leah Taylor, Jeff Wilson, John Farney and Stephanie Fortado voted for the resolution.

Lorraine Cowart was the only "no" vote; she had previously seconded a motion by Stohr to table the matter until civil or criminal charges are brought with "sufficient evidence," but the vote failed.

"Only thing I can say is to press charges against Mr. Danos," she said.

The approved resolution alleges that Danos:

1. "Maintained sexually explicit images on county owned equipment and viewed an image of an inappropriate nature during work hours where it was witnessed by an employee."

2. Only had documented log-ins into the county's Munis software for 20 out of 461 days from Jan. 1, 2023 to April 8, 2024.

3. Failed to complete the annual audit within statutory timelines in 2018 and 2019, with the 2019 audit turned in so late that it resulted in adverse impacts for the county that Danos failed to disclose.

4. Used his county office and equipment for political activities.

5. Violated the county's travel and business expense ordinance by submitting a request that he did not incur as part of his duties as auditor and pressured employees to issue reimbursement for the expenses.

The resolution also claims that Danos violated the state constitution, the Illinois State Officials and Employees Ethics Act, the Champaign County ethics ordinance and the Champaign County policy against discrimination, harassment and sexual misconduct.

Some of the basis for the document stems from a Freedom of Information Act request previously submitted by an anonymous individual known as "Cookie Cutter," later identified as local Democrat and former Cunningham Township Assessor Wayne Williams. The request sought information on employee complaints and computer usage in the auditor's office.

Board members later solicited complaints from Danos' office that were also incorporated into the censure resolution.

Danos has claimed that the accusations are driven by political and personal differences between him and his opponents, particularly in regards to his stance that a sales tax increase is not needed.

He argues that some of the claims, such as the travel expense reimbursement, are differences of opinion and others, such as the allegations that he has campaigned during office hours, are false.

Danos' attorney, Jim Martinkus, spoke against the resolution during the time for public comment.

Among other things, he disputed officials' assertion that Danos kept explicit images on county-owned equipment.

"You have a forensic report that says — this is part of your record on this — 'on February 10, 2023, state's attorney's office and the office of the county executive requested county IT perform forensics research of auditor Danos' computer based upon a claim of pornographic images being present on or accessed by the system on or around February 9, 2023,'" Martinkus said.

He added that the report went on to say that the IT department's findings did not find "anything of a pornographic nature" accessed on or around Feb. 9, 2023.

He also said that the county's travel and expense policy does not apply to elected officials, though they are encouraged to adopt the policy.

Farney later disputed the attorney's claims regarding the explicit images, saying that Martinkus had only read part of the FOIA response.

"He said, 'No findings by county IT were able to confirm anything of a pornographic nature being accessed on or around February 9,'" Farney said. "And then he stopped. Allow me to read the following line: 'However, compelling documents were found on Danos' hard drive, which included numerous files which could be construed as pornographic, as well as some images which featured fully naked men.' So it didn't happen on February 9. Big deal."

In addition to the claims listed in the report,Rodriguez, who chairs the labor committee, said that the auditor interrupted a meeting with employees and a representative of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees on the subject of organizing as a union.

"The auditor interrupted the meeting and yelled and said that they did not need to organize," she said.

Danos has said that he did not intimidate or try to intimidate anyone at the meeting. He claimed that he was simply displeased because the employees had not given advance notice of their plans to leave for the session, and their departure meant that he was the only one left in the office.

While Stohr ultimately voted to approve the censure resolution, he said earlier in the meeting that since Danos may be around for another term, "it's worth our effort to try to find some way that we can all work together."

"In that light, I would point out that being an obnoxious supervisor, socially awkward or mistake-prone is not malfeasance," Stohr said. "... On the other side, there is a litany of annoyances that has circulated in the resolution under consideration, and I'd add to that list."

He said that a recent fiscal report provided by Danos was not explained well and leaves county board members to try to sort out whether they should accept his findings or those submitted by the county's fiscal administrators.

Stohr added that he would like more information from Danos to back up the claims in his report so that the county can better decide on a course of action.

"Neither endorsing or overlooking the past mistakes or indiscretions, I respectfully move that the censure resolution be tabled until such time as criminal or civil charges of malfeasance, which is an act that is illegal and causes physical or monetary harm to someone, is brought with sufficient evidence," he said.

However, other county board members said that they did not see the point of waiting to censure Danos.

Straub said that while she appreciated the intentions behind Stohr's proposal, "I think chalking this all up to being socially awkward or bumbling through things is really dismissive of the very serious kinds of concerns that have been brought forth by the auditor's office."

Rodriguez said that censuring Danos is one of the few actions the board can take in this matter.

"This is not something that will solve everything," she said. "It is meaningful as a benchmark. It is our way of spitting this kind of treatment of employees out of our mouth as a county. And that to me is a worthwhile endeavor."