Dolton general fund $3.65M in debt, down from surplus of $5.6M when Henyard took office: Lightfoot

DOLTON, Ill. (WLS) -- Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot laid out the preliminary findings of her investigation into the village of Dolton's finances and Mayor Tiffany Henyard Thursday.

Village trustees and residents said they've known for years that Dolton is in a dire financial situation, but the results of Lightfoot's investigation is so much worse than they were expecting.

Lit up and laid out in cold, hard numbers on a big screen, it appears Dolton's bank accounts are depleted.

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The village hired Lightfoot to conduct an independent probe into Henyard's spending.

Slide by slide, Lightfoot laid out in detail the findings from her four months of work.

"As of May 30 of this year, the village's general fund was in a net deficit position," Lightfoot said.

According to Lightfoot's documentation, Dolton's general fund balance is now $3.65 million in debt, depleted from a flush fund of more than $5.6 million in April 2022, around the time Henyard took office.

SEE ALSO: Dolton Village Board places top cop on administrative leave, lays off 8 village employees

That figured astonished the audience of residents, drawing audible gasps.

Cash on hand, Lightfoot said, is nonexistent, and Dolton's unpaid bills under Henyard's administration are piling up.

"Since March of 2023 the village has been unable to pay all its monthly expenditures," Lightfoot said. "As of June 18, 2024, there are 589 check totaling over $6 million that have been approved, printed, but not transmitted to vendors."

As the bank account balance plummeted, the village's credit card spending on six different cards soared last year. There were nine different domestic trips, including one to Las Vegas that's now part of multiple investigations; more than $43,000 in Amazon charges in one day; $8,000 on purchases from Wayfair, and more than $2,000 at Best Buy.

"These are somebody using the credit card and charging these amounts using your tax dollars," Lightfoot said.

Village trustees have been waiting for this information for years.

"Y'all know it took everything in my soul to sit here and stomach this report," Belcher said. "$40,000 at Amazon?? What a slap in the face."

Village residents who have been hammering Mayor Henyard for months were left nearly in tears.

"It's beyond belief and it's going to take us years, I'll probably be dead before they get this straightened out," said resident Dan Lee. "That's how long it's going to take for us to dig out of this hole that they have placed us under. And they continue to laugh and lie in the faces of people who don't know any better."

Four months into the fiscal year the village still has no budget.

Lightfoot, who was paid $30,000 for this investigation, said the village finances have not been audited by the state, as required by law, since 2021.

ABC7 reached out to Mayor Tiffany Henyard, who was not at tonight's meeting, for a response, but we've not heard back