money and in this case the misuse of the public funds was for an illegal purpose and that under illinois law constitutes damage for which a taxpayer may soon as i said we have brought you had to do with the insurance or medical bills it had to do with the administration of medical bills that are submitted by medical providers on behalf of will county employees who have gone to see a provider that and and their positions they said have been lying our position is that the contract between the defendant eight c s e and the county needed to appropriate a specified sum or at least for the the ability for the taxpayer to determine how much money is being paid to eight c s e not for insurance but for the administration of cl that the county can look back for instance if there ever busy came a time where the county would want to privatized and take its health insurance to someone else currently it has no way to be able to determine how much it pays elements we have to show mr charlie that i have questions for what what is it that which statute or statutory provision or constitutional provision do you claim that was violated the illinois freedom of information act and then generally i think it's i think it it's not disputed that like any other state the state of the act and as i was saying there are three elements for purposes of the motion dismissed that we have to plead probably plea and we believe we've put one that are that are plenty of living king is a taxpayer will county two that the defend s will county and eight c s e entered into this contract without a proper appropriation which under illinois law would be that it is void have an issue and as if it never existed and number three that the track court dismissed how do you respond to the argument the got raised in the harper case that was cited here for persuasive to the issue of  y suing the county for its wrongful conduct in this right but in the harper case the the identical allegation was made that you they had taxpayer standing because of the general allegation that they had to replenish the general revenue with their tax dollars that's the same allegation that you're making here there they found that that wasn't sufficient and it's not a legally cognizable entrance dead i think the that the taxpayer was responsible for the ill gotten the illegal payments made to the board member and that's what we've done at that and again we're at a motion to dismiss stage if more information or more allegation to we have always said that is a legal contract and as a result the money needs to be brought back to the fisc and all that and to this point all but that all those illegal payments have had to been replenished and paid for by clients or taxpayers like my client less money it was all what your basis for saying what you just said that they're making all this money how much money they're making what to it by the county for the administration's claims vs how much the county is actually paying to the health care providers the doctors hospitals for the care treatment of their employees  under the contract is there a service the that paid by the county to h c s c there is well they have the contract provides that they will this that they will accept a c s e will be able to retain the the amounts of money that it has received from the county in excess of what the health care providers are willing to accept from a discounted rate fee that goes with that ok thank you you're welcome but the important thing to understand about this is the way this situation arises a c s e is not insured it's not a provider it goes out and as the administrator go to these health care providers and says look we will pay we can bring to you hundreds and thousands of will county employees  potential patients as customers do that provider you're going to need to take a discount for us to give you access to that mark the providers do that that whatever that discount is and nowhere is it disclosed how much the discount is number one or what a c s e attempts to use as a as its explanation or justification for this is that while we use we average we come up with what's called an a t p an average discount price which is to substitute for what the actual discount and the problem was that is number one no one knows how to calculate not the county and certainly not the taxpayers and number two as i see it supposed to be a reasonable substitution for the actual this can well that discount should be because the discussion should flow back to the to the to the to the taxpayers because what will county is will county is bringing these potential patients to the providers they're just using the market to to get discounts and then retain that compensation the difference in what was billed vs what was paid and that amount who cares what their net income has ok to make money and it is as long as they disclose how it how it's done especially when we're dealing with public finance you know let me ask you another question you asked talk about this health care service corporation which does business in state of illinois is blue cross blue shield of illinois the circuit court properly dismissed plaintiff's nd amended complaint and it's important to note that this was  minus rd complaint filed in the circuit court because it found correctly that the claims are derivative and they are not direct taxpayer claims for a number of reasons the diff fish in season a complaint with respect to trying to state that direct taxpayer claim are both pleading deficiencies and legal deficiencies and she simply fails to meet the requirements of a taxpayer action now plan of said in her reply brief  and said again the snorting that there were an authorized actions and misappropriations of funds by will county that those are the heart of the matter which is why they characterize this as a direct taxpayer action but that contention is not supported by the actual allegations of the nd amended complaint and don't support the elements that the supreme court has set out this a requirement th beginning the middle and the end of the inquiry here about when there has been a direct taxpayer action stated has to start with the material allegations the well pled material d allegations of the complaint and a determination of both the true party and interest on the claims and the nature of the role that is alleged so i'm going to talk about three specific problems with the complaint st there is no sufficient legal or factual basis for what is a wholly conclusory allegation that will county took illegal action and misappropriated money belonging to taxpayers there are there are no well planned allegations in the  is a effectively a repayment by c s e of the monies that were paid by will county under the plane of claims as an illegal contract and to the extent h c s e would be required to did school following from the st two there is no sufficient ringback allegation in the nd amended complaint that plaintiff had any direct injury or individual liability to pursue these claims for risk  her own behalf and and for taxpayers it is exactly as justice schmidt indicated earlier like the harper case in that sense so i will address each of these these defs facts and then briefly at the end to the extent i still have time i will address the new claims that plaintiff has raised here which relate to the counties code which i will simply point out now in case i run out of time are not included in the complaint at all there is no reference to the count code or to the claim that a line item or health insurance benefits is insufficient to cover administrative services related to health insurance benefits none of that appears in the nd amended complaint so with respect to what is really the fundamental deficiency in the complaint which is the failure to allege any illegal or unauthorized acts by will county the supreme court has made clear in the long line sufficiently pled facts not just the statement that that is the case which is what we submit we find in the nd amended complaint in the lions the ryan case which we also cited in our brief the court also made clear the public officials are presumed to perform their public duties according to law so with that background in looking at the allegations of the complaint we find that there are fourteen paragraphs in the nd amended complaint in are all about what age c s e allegedly does that violates illinois law and this d is significant that misleads will county so there's this fourteen paragraph saying this is what it c s e does it's defrauding the county it's misleading it files or submit false billing reports fourteen paragraphs that never mention will county in paragraph fifteen at sea want to four is the very st place where there is even a suggestion that will county may be implicated in any wrongdoing and there they simply say that age c s e and will county must comport with what the illinois courts have described as the prior appropriations rule that rule requires that the amount that unit of local government intends to pay a private vendor under a contract must fix the amount and method of calculation to be paid to the ven that statement is repeated in another place and that is really the extent of the allegations about the wrongdoing from will county and there is no support legally for that statement there's a reference to a prior appropriations rule but there isn't any description of where that prior appropriations rule comes from it clearly isn't in the constitution it isn't in the freedom of information act it isn't in the local records act which is the actual statute for way of it is cited in the nd amended complaint and there's no reference to any other statutes in the complaint so they're there simply is not a sufficient basis legally or factually for the contention that will county engaged in illegal d or unauthorized acts now the complaint does include that conclusion in a number of places there are repeated statements to the effect will county knowingly and wrongfully entered into a contract that is in derogation of illinois law but again there's there's no factual or legal support for any of those allegations now this is significant in addition to that to the pleading issues because of the failure to support the contention that this is a direct taxpayer action based on misconduct by will county or its officials because of the absence of any basis for the illegality of the contract even i would submit in the answers to to question so far this morning first of all we cited the provision of article eight section one of the illinois constitution in its entirety in our appropriations and for entering into contracts but it doesn't itself create any obligations so that there there would have to be some allegation that that constitutional provision was my lated because w failed to comply with some law or regulation and that is missing from d the complaint secondly there is reference in the complaint to the illinois local records act and no explanation of how  records act would make a twenty eight million dollars contract void ab initio and there was no development of that point point in the briefs that were filed here on on behalf of the appellant so what we're left with is the legal support for this claim then is this referenced prior appropriations rule which again is is not to find is not tied to a statute or some other obligation and we submit is simply not sufficient to meet the requirements and the and the pleading burden that the plaintiffs are seeking to void a contract based on a pile ation of a statute and based on the claim that will county if effectively mis spent public money there there has to be something to tie the allegations to a violation of law and there simply isn't the argument that the plaintiff makes with respect to the fact that the contract itself is a violation of this prior appropriations rule because the county and the taxpayers can't know what age c s e ends up making as a profit on this contract finds no support at all the illinois law and the harper recent harper case by the st district makes that point as well that there is no obligation in illinois law that requires a private vendor to disclose what is its profits on a contract there are there's simply no obligation and that isn't part of an appropriation it the big example i think makes this point and i can use the same numbers that the appellant used if they that nobody knows and it isn't in the contract how much the vendor is paying for those widgets doesn't make the contract a failure in terms of appropriation or any other legal requirements it is a completely separate element as long as the tax payers know and in in the in terms of both the appropriations and in the public nature of the contract they know exactly in the line item budget what will county is spending for health insurance benefits so long as the widget contract makes clear that that the county is paying one hundred dollars for widgets fact that the bender pay something else for those widgets is completely irrelevant under any of the legal theories here with respect to the the taxpayer standing argument the argument is very similar it is absolutely the case that the complaint repeatedly makes the standing because of an actual injury in fact to her that is sufficient to justify standing and it is identical again to the decision in the harper case where the taxpayer simply alleged that she was a taxpayer and the taxpayers had been injured without any support for that that the court found to be insufficient if she made an allegation that there is likely in this situation justice make date for two reasons one because there would also have to then be a explanation and a description that would show and imminent injury and a likely injury sufficient for standing but also would have to effectively rule out any other way to fill in that budget deficit so in other words if the budget deficit was going to be filled in by  gasoline tax and supposed to say property tax and we don't know which will county taxes this taxpayer claims to pay we there is no allegation that she's a property owner it's simply that she pays taxes in will county so there would there would have to be more to actually t'ai the circumstances and the allegation to an injury in fact that would be if there are specific to in this case ms king or two will county taxpayers as a whole so what you're saying positing it seems to me as a situation where you can't make an adequate allegation with discovery no not necessarily because there certainly have been cases where a tax payer was deemed to have sufficiently showed that with respect to a specific misuse of funds that was funded by a specific  e either levy by a unit of government or a particular tax that is tied to that misuse you could but the courts have been pretty clear to say this this is a narrow doctrine the doctrine of taxpayer direct actions doesn't just open the courts to a complaint for misspending by any taxpayer simply because the source of that money is used is taxpayer information and the final point i will make is that with respect to the v e c case that the appellant indicated was the basis and supported their position the visy case actually said there were there were only only conclusory allegations of standing of exactly this type and the case was remain ended in order to give the taxpayer in that situation an opportunity to show that there could be those allegations but the appellate court in the visa case actually concluded that there were in your opinion in this case it is it wouldn't necessarily be there could certainly be cases where there were only claims that didn't include monetary really believe where there could be a different analysis but here the that the injun claim really is is no different than the claim that they they want the money repaid by each c s e it's not really a distinct claim and the claim for and bought one hundred dollars with a widget from a vendor then it shouldn't and as long as that was appropriated the county shouldn't get into the business of how much profit or money the vendor was making and we completely agree in this will it is the one who is administrating these claims it's not a vendor it if you take that if you take that analogy and it actually applied to this set of facts it would be this it would be a situation where a buyers agent went to a vendor and said hey i can bring to you a challenge and you can sell all the widgets you want to the county but i want you behind the scenes to split with me your profit if you do that if you split your profit with me i'll bring this up bring the sunshine into your to you as a as a customer that's the situation we're dealing with a c f l well on the ask you this  what if if the county would not want to go to this vendor but less middleman but go to somebody else and put out these would just for a bit but this person says i'll get to the w apples comparison here is what these providers are charging and what they are accepting as payment then the county can make an informed decision and the public let me have it this way blue cross blue shield isn't the shield much blue cross blue shield made in that process seems to me totally irrelevant again blue cross blue shield is not going to administer those claims and go out and make deals with each of these health care providers for free just as we we don't disagree that there is no one to say that they cannot and should not do this as a as a business opportunity but what our theory and our argument is that to do that when you're dealing with a public public entity you have to tell the public entity here is what it's costing here's what it costs to provide for the provision of health care for employees that's x here is what we're going to charge as your rd party ministry as your age so that you can decide whether or not you want to continue as a self insured  contractors you can find to rebuild the roads of will county and then well you can administer those and we will pay you to do that vs the road in the road contractor then works with a e and says well listen well build this road because you got us will county as a as a client we wrote paver will only charge you