by Ulysses Arn
- Frank Mautino
Former state Representative Frank Mautino who took over the duties of Illinois' Auditor General at the start of the year cannot catch a break as the watchdog examination of his campaign spending has found yet another irregularity, this time with his leasing of office space.
State board of election records reviewed by USofArn.com show that from January 1999 until 2007 Mautino paid no rent of any kind for his Spring Valley office. That is one sweet-heart deal. Records do show Mautino making occasional office space rental during election years in Streator and Princeton.
Since 2007 Mautino has been paying Daniel McFadden the amazingly low price of $100 a month for rent.
State records show that from 1999 until he closed his office to take the Auditor Generals job Mautino was paying utilities, and phone and internet service. Indeed records show that Mautino was paying multiple service providers at the same time for phone and internet service; making payments to Comcast, IV Net, Illinois Valley Cellular, Verizon, and Frontier.
Further review of state campaign expenditure reports show that Mautino was paying some of his campaign workers(Steven Lewis, Harry Pelka, Scott Maunu, and Joseph Mishendy) thousands of dollars to do "repair" work at his campaign office, even during years when he was not paying any rent for said space.
State records also show that Mautino paid to have this furnace replaced at least twice, and he paid to have the parking lot resurfaced. What landlord has a tenant pay to make sure repairs?
None that I have ever heard of.
In total Mautino spent $38,566.74 since 1999 on repairs to his office. This is in addition to the more than $284,000 Mautino spent on repairs and gas for his "campaign vehicle", and another $77,000 for meals at Spring Valley restaurants.
Records reviewed by USofArn.com also show that Mautino paid one Stephanie Losey hundreds of dollars to clip newspaper articles from 1999 into the early 2000's.
Frank Mautino has yet to respond to the grow controversy over his spending habits.
