State workers remove chairs from fairgrounds
Need some chairs? A saw? A brake job?
If you work for the state of Illinois and are assigned to the state fairgrounds in Springfield, you can get all this, and more, for free. That’s what state employees said when a pair of colleagues were caught removing state-owned chairs from the multipurpose arena at the fairgrounds last December.
The Christmas Eve caper involved Adam Stock, a laborer, and Steve Castleman, a maintenance worker, who were captured by a security camera removing an unknown number of chairs from the fairgrounds with a state-owned truck. The truck left the fairgrounds at 8:45 a.m. and returned, empty, at 10 a.m., according to documents released under a Freedom of Information Act request. Both men were on the clock at the time, according to time sheets.
In a written statement, the men, both employed by Central Management Services, explained that Castleman was having a party at his house and needed chairs. Since the chairs at the fairgrounds arena were never used and were more comfortable than folding chairs, they loaded up the state truck and then headed to Castleman’s house near Pawnee, the men said. According to their statement, the men also planned to do some work on Department of Natural Resources land in Pawnee. But that task never got done.
“It started raining and we both decided that it was unsafe to work in the rain, so we headed back to the fairgrounds,” wrote the men, who said they were borrowing the chairs and intended to return them.
Someone blew the whistle, and when the men returned to the fairgrounds, they were confronted by someone whose name was redacted from the men’s written statement disclosed pursuant to a records request. After being confronted, the men drove back to Castleman’s house, apparently in personal vehicles, and retrieved the chairs that belonged to the state Department of Agriculture.
“Steve and I have realized that we made a stupid mistake and have admitted that we did from day one,” the men wrote in their statement. “We did not believe we were doing anything that was wrong at the time because this has been allowed in the past.”
The men wrote that borrowing stateowned equipment was common practice at the fairgrounds and that supervisors knew it. They bolstered their claim with statements from employees.
“I seen (redacted) leaving the fairgrounds with a pole saw sticking out the back of his truck, which I was told…was (for) cutting shooting lanes for bow hunting as he had bought 40 acres south of Springfield,” wrote one worker in a handwritten statement. “I also know for a fact that (redacted) borrowed (a) pole saw as well as he went to lunch in his state truck, picked up his wife then ran in the back of a stopped car received a ticket but was not even given an oral reprimand.”
That same employee later augmented his statement.
“I just remembered another case of misuse of state time,” the employee wrote “This summer (redacted) had a brake rotor and brake pads changed in state garage at fairgrounds on state time… He and a temp summer helper did this job on state time on his personal vehicle.”
Other state-owned equipment taken from the fairgrounds for personal use included a chain saw, a power weed cutter, a power washer, a blower and tables, according to employees who provided written statements that Castleman and Stock attached to their statement. In their statement, the two men said that someone whose name was redacted was caught taking money from an office at the fairgrounds and returned it, with no apparent discipline.
The value of the chairs isn’t clear. A supervisor in a written statement said that the chairs, which had been borrowed by the Department of Corrections and returned to the fairgrounds the day before Stock and Castleman took them, had been designated as junk by CMS. However, an employee whose name was redacted said he had heard that Stock had done research on the chairs and determined they were each worth between $50 and $200, depending on condition. Stock denied doing any such research. Jared Thornley, chief of staff at the Department of Agriculture, said that the department didn’t want the chairs declared surplus and so they remained in storage as of Jan. 27.
According to written statements from employees, borrowed equipment was usually returned within a few days, but a dolly remains missing. The person accused of taking it, whose name was redacted from documents, denied removing it from the fairgrounds. A CMS manager said a dolly has been missing since the fall of 2013.
“If (redacted) did take it, I doubt that he would admit it as he indicated during the inventory that it had never been returned by the restroom crew that is hired for the state fair,” the manager wrote in an email to the CMS employee who conducted the investigation into Stock and Castleman.
Stock, who was hired in 1999, was paid $64,575 last year; Castleman, hired in 1996, was paid $79,267 in 2014.
According to the last four audit reports issued by the state auditor general, more than $537,000 worth of equipment under control of the Department of Agriculture has been either lost or stolen since 2005. The department says it’s trying to keep track of equipment.
“Management and supervisory personnel will be held accountable for all property in their division/bureau,” writes Kristi Jones, spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture, in an email.
Just what discipline Castleman and Stock face isn’t clear.
Benno Weisberg, CMS general counsel, confirmed that the state has issued discipline but Castleman and Stock have appealed their punishment. Until the appeals are decided, Weisberg said, the public can’t know how the state decided to punish the employees.
“Our position is that FOIA protects that until the grievance process is concluded,” Weisberg said in an interview. “If you come back in a couple of months and the discipline’s final, we’ll turn that over to you.”
Don Craven, a Springfield attorney who specializes in public-records law, disagreed with Weisberg’s position. Once discipline is decided, Craven said, it should be a matter of public record regardless of whether an employee appeals.
“We’re entitled to know how supervisors do their jobs,” Craven said.
