McHenry County officials are trying to turn the page on the recent troubled years at the McHenry County regional education office that resulted in the regional superintendent’s impeachment last month.

State audits of the office revealed repeated accounting and organizational errors for six consecutive years, and a county internal audit in July identified 27 issues. Then-regional superintendent Leslie Schermerhorn blamed the county for the mistakes, but county leaders said she was responsible and did not fix the issues.

“Everything could have been corrected with a basic understanding and an ability to understand office management, knowledge of the law and communication,” said McHenry County Auditor Shannon Teresi. “We cannot do the legwork for them.”

Most of the problems were related to incorrect accounting of funds. The Regional Office of Education maintains five bank accounts that are largely beyond the reach of the county. Teresi recommended that the accounts be consolidated and brought under county control to give the office’s small staff better financial management, but that never happened.

A month after Schermerhorn was removed from office, the county is moving forward with changes.

The county council will consider a resolution later this month that would close two of the office’s bank accounts and reopen them under county control. It would also add McHenry County Treasurer as a signer on three other state-controlled accounts.

Acting Regional Superintendent Mike Freeman has worked in the office since 2013 and supports consolidation of bank accounts, noting that with the small staff in the office this will help them “more accurately count funds” and “we can deal with some findings. past ”.

“I think it was a good first step forward,” he said.

Since taking office last month, Freeman said he has been in contact with the Illinois Auditor General’s office on plans to correct problems with the state audit.

Schermerhorn declined to comment for this story, but previously said she would take legal action to fight her eviction, which she said was an illegal county council decision. No legal action was filed on Friday.

Despite all the problems the office faced, many of the audit findings were related to similar issues, and officials are hopeful they can be fixed quickly.

“If they follow the recommendations that we made in internal audits, I think a lot of things will change very quickly,” Teresi said.

Freeman said he hopes to be the one to lead the office to its next chapter. He is one of three candidates to become the next regional superintendent.

County board chairman Mike Buehler said interviews with the candidates would begin soon. The county has until mid-January to hire, according to state law.

“(The candidates) know the problems,” Buehler said. “It has been in the news twice in the past three months, and I think people are well aware of the issues. I think a good candidate would go one step further and read the audits and see what the solutions are. “

The post of regional superintendent is an elected post that will be re-elected in 2022. Schermerhorn was appointed to this post in 2012 and ran unchallenged in 2014 and 2018. County officials have said they want to find some stability with the next one. superintendent by identifying someone willing to run for the office.

State Senator Craig Wilcox, a Republican from McHenry and former member of the county board of directors, is working to make changes to state regulations that govern what qualifies a person to be a regional superintendent.

“It has not been a very competitive position for the election, and it is difficult to find people who are looking for this position and who have all the qualifications,” said Wilcox.

He said his bill would try to better match the qualifications of the office to what regional superintendents do. This would include allowing people to have a superintendent’s approval or a corporate approval on their educator license to attract applicants who are better equipped to handle administrative and financial operations.

Officials now hope they will be able to find the right kind of leadership to solve years of problems and get the office back to work with schools.

“Unfortunately, this whole thing with Leslie and the county board was a big distraction here,” Freeman said. “I wish Leslie the best, but I think it’s good to look ahead and make things right that need to be taken care of.”