Orland Park Mayor James Dodge emphatically denied a conflict-of-interest inquiry by Trustee William Healy regarding the village’s insurance carrier.

At the June 2 Committee of the Whole meeting, Dodge addressed a May 28 letter Healy sent to Village Manager George Koczwara regarding Dodge’s past work as a practice leader for Millman Advanced Analytics. The village is considering whether to stay with the Horton Group or find a less expensive carrier and Millman is consulting another group.

“I am disturbed that there seems to be a connection between Jim Dodge and this company,” Healy wrote. “It would have been nice knowing that such a connection existed when we discussed this issue. I would not call this transparency in the least.”

Healy added that he “loathed” the idea of discussing this in an open meeting until there are answers. He didn’t want a public display of animosity.

Healy was not at the June 2 meeting due to attending a funeral, according to trustee Michael Milani. Milani suggested the board table conversation until Healy returned but Dodge, a former trustee, addressed the letter toward the end of the two-hour meeting.

“I left Millman in the year 2018,” Dodge said. “I left this village board in 2021. Sometime in 2022, a firm I had never heard of sought actuarial help from one of the world’s largest independent actuarial firms for which I hadn’t had a relationship in something of the order of seven or eight years.”

Dodge openly asked village attorney Dennis Walsh if there was anything under Illinois, Cook County or local laws or regulations that would require him to say anything about his past employment with Millman.

Walsh said that since there was no ongoing employment or relationship with Millman, there was no obligation to disclose it.

Milani said he didn’t think this needed to be an agenda item and that Dodge and Healy should have just talked about it among themselves.

Meanwhile Koczwara said the village is not in contact with the Millman organization.

“The only engagement that the village had was with the Illinois Public Benefit Cooperative,” Koczwara said. “And they use many consultants. Their business model is full transparency for all of the public sector organizations that are a part of it.

“The village does not control who IPBC uses as their consultants.”

During the mayoral election, the Inform Orland Park group released a video in January criticizing then-mayor Keith Pekau and the board for using Horton, saying that it costs the village more than $1 million a year. Horton had been the village’s carrier since 2003, Pekau said in January.

Pekau was not in favor of changing to IPBC due to concerns about protection from losses of other municipalities in the IPBC group.

Trustee John Lawler said on Jan. 2 that Orland Park is overpaying for its insurance, and that Horton is receiving a “sweetheart deal.” He added he had been stymied when he was trying to find out details via FOIA.

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