Editorial: Dolton and other south suburbs can’t afford corruption taxes from the likes of Tiffany Henyard

The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune
Updated ·5 min read
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The walls appear to be closing in around Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard.

The mayor of the small south suburb has been the subject of numerous media reports detailing highly questionable spending, as well as retaliatory attacks on and harassment of perceived political enemies including local businesses, all of which have thrown Dolton into what can legitimately be described as chaos.

The FBI reportedly is investigating her, both in her capacity as Dolton mayor and as supervisor of Thornton Township, which covers Dolton and 16 other south suburbs. She also is a defendant in lawsuits by former employees.

Unfortunately for the beleaguered suburb, which in the normal course of affairs experiences more than its share of troubles due to its high poverty rate and declining population, Henyard isn’t up for reelection until 2025. While she remains in place, there are worries about keeping up with such basic municipal services as timely garbage collection.

Yes, garbage collection. The Dolton board of trustees, meeting a few days ago with Mayor Henyard absent, approved one of their own as president pro tem to act in the mayor’s stead if she’s unavailable to ensure services such as trash pick-up aren’t interrupted. The village apparently was late in paying its garbage vendor, and someone needed to sign paperwork to ensure money for servicing of bonds floated to cover trash collection was included in the village’s property tax levy.

Henyard’s misadventures have put her at loggerheads with a substantial caucus of the board, which has led to these sorts of embarrassing miscues.

Henyard appears to be in a league of her own when it comes to audacious corruption, but Dolton isn’t alone among south suburbs in its miseries. Many municipalities in the Southland region long have been afflicted by sky-high property taxes that fall particularly hard on the many residents carving out modest-at-best livings.

Corruption in the Chicago region and Illinois as a whole long has imposed a grotesque tax of sorts on residents and businesses throughout the state. But it hits harder in places like Dolton that barely can afford to provide basic services under the best of circumstances. The sooner the scourge of Tiffany Henyard can be ended, whether at the ballot box or at the hands of federal law enforcement, the better.

Some of Henyard’s maneuvers as she faces intensifying pushback from members of the Dolton board and other local officials are the stuff of comedic overreach. As a recent Fox-32 expose of Hanyard’s doings reminded us, the Daily Southtown reported that Thornton Township Assessor Cassandra Elston had been locked out of her own office, apparently on the orders of Henyard, who doubles as the township supervisor in addition to serving as Dolton’s mayor. Elston is a separately elected official, so Henyard has no oversight of her.

Henyard routinely travels with a Dolton police escort made up of several cops who work substantial overtime hours (and are paid accordingly) to chaperone her. This in a village with a modest police force that the former Dolton police chief (whom Henyard fired late last year and who now is suing the village for wrongful termination) told Fox-32 can only afford a few cops on duty per shift.

There are many other allegations of questionable spending, so many in fact that the Dolton board moved to hire former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to perform a thorough audit of the village’s finances under Henyard. The mayor vetoed the measure to hire Lightfoot, and an override vote is scheduled for next month.

We urge the board to go ahead with the Lightfoot hiring even though it will come at a cost. Lightfoot may not have endeared herself to Chicago voters in her difficult single term as mayor, but she’s tough and smart and would be adept at this task. That would be money well-spent under the current highly unfortunate circumstances.

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In the meantime, Henyard’s story displays many of the troubling hallmarks common to political life in the south suburbs. The two offices she holds pay her a combined salary of $270,000. As Thornton Township supervisor, she’s paid $224,000. She makes another $46,000 as Dolton mayor.

The Thornton Township post is so lucrative that Henyard late last year convinced the township’s board of trustees to pass a measure that would cut the supervisor’s salary to $25,000 — but only if someone other than Henyard holds the job. It remains $224,000 so long as she is in the post. That presumably will get laughed out of court if it gets that far. But such is life in Henyard-world.

Holding numerous political positions in this fashion is all too common in the south suburbs. Thaddeus Jones, for example, serves as mayor of Calumet City and as a state representative. State Sen. Napoleon Harris reportedly is interested in running against Henyard for Thornton Township supervisor in 2025 and undoubtedly would keep both gigs if he runs and wins.

These politicians garner multiple salaries and the associated generous pensions in so doing. The region’s taxpayers, meanwhile, suffer.

In Dolton, for example, the average residential property tax bill tops $4,500 a year. The median home value in Dolton was around $129,000 from 2018 to 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The median household income was below $55,000. About 20% of the mainly Black population of around 20,000 lives in poverty.

These are not the kind of demographics that can withstand the cost of corruption.

Tiffany Henyard’s fate is yet to be determined. Whatever happens, Dolton, and many municipalities like it, can’t take much more of her like.

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