AURORA — On the city’s East Side, the new school year kicked off with East Aurora School Board President Annette Johnson saying she had “lost trust” for some of the district’s administrators.

Now, more details of the School District’s finances have begun to unravel. East Aurora Superintendent Jerome Roberts said that the district does not have “about half” of the receipts that show exactly what administrators purchased on district-provided credit cards at shops like Target, Walmart and online retailer Amazon over the past year.

Taxpayers are footing the bill for those credit card purchases.

The district’s Old Second Visa Business Card statements show that in a one-year period, East Aurora administrators spent $322,733 on the charge cards. The Beacon-News acquired the bills from June 2011 to June 2012.

Published in the Chicago Tribune July 04, 2010 

By Stephanie Lulay, Marissa Monson and Ellen Gabler, Chicago Tribune

Ray Hott bought a strip of land in DeKalb so he'd have a place to store his collection of cars. He converted an old union hall on the property into a part-garage, part-apartment, and planted a garden that sprouted huge tomatoes.

That was four years ago. What Hott didn't know was that a century earlier, his land had been next to a gas plant that burned coal to produce fuel for lighting, heating and cooking.

He also had no idea that the former owners left behind toxic chemicals that have lingered in the ground for decades, according to court and regulatory records.

After a meeting with Trustee Harry Davis, Supervisor Dan Nagel decided to resign. On the same day, Oct. 31, Nagel wrote a $4,000 check payable to the township , Trustee Scott Jesseman and Davis confirmed. 

“Who writes a check back if you didn’t do anything?” Jesseman said.