Harvey library trustee questions how board reviews invoices

Correction, 05/22/2025: An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated information regarding the library board’s vice president. It has been updated to reflect correspondence from the state attorney general’s office.

The Harvey Public Library District approved March expenses, totaling $67,057.43. The approval wasn’t without a lively discussion, initiated by trustee Charwana Morgan’s concern that invoices were made available four minutes before the board’s April 10 meeting.

“How are we approving the bills list when we just got the invoices at 6:26 [P.M.], and nobody’s been able to look at these invoices?” Morgan asked.

Board president Anthony McCaskill responded that there was a rule change to how financial documents were shared because in the past, they’ve gotten into the wrong hands.

“The reason we stopped emailing the invoices is because we had people — and I don’t know who — but people were giving the information out, and people in different areas were taking the account numbers and trying to open up [new] accounts,” McCaskill said. “So that’s why we decided to just have them be available [at the meeting].”

A simple redaction of confidential information could fix the issue, Morgan said. “You could have just taken out the invoice numbers or account numbers. To just not have invoices available for trustees before a meeting is dead wrong,” Morgan said. “Some of us just came in here. How are we voting on something that we haven’t even looked at?”

“We have an actual ledger of all the bills that was emailed out,” McCaskill responded.

During discussion, trustee Tamika Price stated that she hadn’t looked at the invoices and that she needed clarity on expenses related to Concentra, split payments for the security vendor, debt collector, and IT services.

After a discussion period that only lasted nearly 10 minutes, the board approved the bills list.

Morgan has repeated complained about transparency at the library. Recently, she filed complaints with the Illinois State Attorney General’s Office and the Illinois Human Rights Commission. According to her complaint, the board did not make the board meetings accessible when Morgan battled health conditions that prevented her from attending in person in February.

Board attorney Tom Condon of Montana & Welch read aloud correspondence from the attorney general in regard to that complaint.

After Condon finished reading the letter, Morgan shared that she received correspondence from the Illinois Attorney General Public Access Bureau, which told her to file her grievance with the Human Rights Commission.

The board tabled the vendor that they will work with to hire the new library director. Originally, they solicited the Isaacson, Miller Executive Search firm to lead the search. However, the firm is currently not accepting new clients. Morgan reminded the board that they should prioritize the search among Harvey residents.

The library has not had one since at least August 2024. Kisha McCaskill, wife of the board president, has herself effectively run the library. As a paid consultant, she’s netted over $30,000 and counting performing administrative work, sparking criticism from Harvey residents.

There were two staff reports, no treasurer reports, and an executive session.