Money woes cut off Sauk Village phone lines for days; police chief personally pays to gas up squad cars
Phone lines in south suburban Sauk Village were disconnected for several days this week due to money issues, but have since been fixed.
A viewer alerted CBS News Chicago to the village's phone issues. When residents called Sauk Village Hall earlier this week they got the standard recording: "The number you have dialed is not in service at this time. Thank you for calling. Goodbye."
The village's phone line was cut off Tuesday due to money issues. More than 10,000 people live in Sauk Village and Mayor Marva Campbell-Pruitt said the majority of them are older.
"We have a lot of older residents who depend on calling us when there's an issue with their homes, or with their water bills, or whatever," she said.
The mayor said the village was supposed to switch phone carriers, but that required work from an outside contractor. She said four of the seven trustees refused to approve payment for that phone work.
CBS News Chicago reached out to the village Wednesday, and then on Wednesday night, the mayor said she made the executive decision to call the IT company and pleaded with them to install the new phones.
"You can't leave us lie this," she said. "I can understand standing up for your rights. You do need to be paid, but you can't let us go down like this."
By Thursday afternoon, the phones were up and running again.
The money woes aren't just affecting phone lines, but also filling up police department squad cars. Interim administrator Anthony Fisher said there's a payment of $200 on their accounts payable for the police chief, who personally paid for gas for his officers' squad cars.
It's all part of a larger issue of paying the village's fuel supplier.
"What happened when we got into office, one of these vendors said we have back payments. They sent us a notice, in an email, I can show it to you that I provided to trustees in May of 2025, saying, 'You guys pay us $17,000 or we're not dealing with any more gas,'" Fisher said.
CBS News Chicago spoke to one of the trustees who voted against paying for the phones. She said she was trying to understand the decision-making between the mayor and the financial department and was not getting straight answers, and that's why she and the others would not approve the payment.
CBS News Chicago also reached out to AT&T about the situation, who responded with the following statement: "We have consistently provided support to the Village within our scope of responsibility. It is ultimately up to the Village and their IT vendor to complete the final self-service implementation of their cloud-based phone service. We remain available should the Village wish to utilize our professional services in the future."
