Madison County has reached a settlement with the Veterans’ Assistance Commission (VAC) and Superintendent Bradley Lavite in a lawsuit alleging the department has been underfunded by more than $1 million.
According to the settlement terms, Madison County agreed to pay $65,000 per year for the next nine years to fund the VAC's Crisis Response Program. Madison County has already paid $65,000 for the current fiscal year, bringing the settlement total to $650,000.
“The VAC is in the process of initiating a Crisis Response Program, which among other things will train first responders how to handle veterans in distress and crisis in real-time, and the Executive Board of the VAC has officially resolved that all payments made to the VAC pursuant to this agreement shall be exclusively used to fund the Crisis Response Program," the agreement states.
Despite the settlement, Madison County and its officials deny the allegations against them.
“Defendants have repeatedly expressly denied any wrongdoing associated with plaintiffs’ claims in their lawsuit," the agreement states
"Without any admission as to fault, liability or wrongdoing, or as to the validity of the plaintiffs’ positions, and in an effort to avoid the expense of future litigation, the parties to this agreement desire to forever resolve and compromise all of the claims asserted or which could have been asserted by plaintiffs against defendants,” it continues.
The Fifth District Appellate Court entered an order announcing the case has been dismissed with prejudice on June 14. The order was signed by Justices Judy Cates, James “Randy” Moore and Mark Boie.
The case was in the hands of the Fifth District after Lavite and the VAC appealed an order by former Madison County Circuit Judge David Dugan granting a motion to dismiss filed by defendants Debra Ming-Mendoza, Mark von Nida and Madison County. Dugan is now a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
Lavite and the VAC filed the 14-count amended complaint on March 2, 2018, after Dugan granted the defendants’ first motion to dismiss in February. The complaint was filed through attorney Thomas Burkart of Hamel.
In their new complaint, the plaintiffs made four new claims against the defendants alleging breaches of statutory duty from 2013 through 2016.
Lavite and the VAC alleged the defendants failed to extend the county’s tax rate sufficiently to raise the money approved for the VAC for tax years 2008 through 2018.
The suit stated that according to Illinois common law, funding for the VAC is established when the VAC makes a recommendation of an appropriate amount necessary to assist veterans, pay salaries and pay expenses. Then the County Board either approves or disapproves.
According to the complaint, the VAC has offered the Madison County Board its recommendation of the funding needed each year for the past decade, which has been approved each year “with little or no change by written agreement contained in the Board’s official minutes.”
Once the funding request was approved, the County Clerk was tasked with determining the tax rate percentage to add to the county’s tax rate in order to produce the funds approved by the County Board, the suit states. Once levied and collected, the suit stated that the money must be paid into a special fund in the county treasury and used as authorized.
The maximum annual rate percent for Veterans Assistance Commissions is .03 percent of the equalized assessed value of all property within the county, according to the County Code of Illinois.
Lavite and the VAC alleged the rate percent necessary to raise the approved funds for the VAC since 2008 has not exceeded the maximum .03 percent.
Lavite and the VAC alleged the defendants breached an agreement to fund the VAC with the approved amount when von Nida and Ming-Mendoza failed to properly determine the correct rate percent to raise the funds for the tax years at issue, resulting in a funding shortfall of $1,058,882.
Ming-Mendoza is the current county clerk. Von Nida served as the county clerk from Dec. 1, 2007 to Nov. 30, 2012. He then served as circuit clerk until his retirement in November 2020.
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint on March 20 through attorney Philip Lading of Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard in Edwardsville.
They argued that the complaint failed to allege essential elements to support a breach of contract claim, failed to state a cognizable cause of action and failed to show the plaintiffs’ entitlement to injunctive relief.
Dugan granted the request, concluding that the defendants did not breach a contract, the plaintiffs were not refused necessary funds and the amended complaint did not allege actual damages.
“If otherwise unnecessary funds were not appropriated, or if VAC has available to it all of the funds it needs to fulfill the purpose of its enabling statute, then there can be no damages because plaintiffs’ position was not worsened by the decision not to overfund VAC,” he wrote.
Madison County Circuit Court case number 18-L-1731