The McLean County Republican Party is calling on an elected officeholder from its own party to step down.
The county GOP issued a statement on Monday stating that McLean County Auditor Michelle Anderson is responsible for a wide range of problems linked to county finances, including delayed grants and bill payments and the county’s 2024 audit which was not completed until October 2025.
County Republican party chair Connie Beard said those delays have been costly for the county.
“The call for her resignation was, we felt, a step toward trying to make sure she realizes we are trying to hold her accountable,” Beard said, noting the party’s 14-member executive committee was unanimous in supporting Anderson’s resignation. “I’m not going to let them slide just because they have an R after their name.”
Beard also blames the Democrat-led county board for not addressing the problems. Democratic County Board Chair Elizabeth Johnston said the Democrats have been raising these concerns about the auditor for years.
Johnston said she wishes more Republicans would have supported the 2024 referendum to eliminate the elected auditor office.
“These are issues we have been raising for quite a while. These are issues we raised in the 2024 referendum. We did see pushback from [Republicans]. I’m glad to see they are taking these issues seriously,” Johnston said.
Anderson was appointed county auditor in 2009 and has won election to the office four times. Anderson has often clashed with county officials over delayed payments, has faced questions about her office’s accounting practices and faced claims she is not responsive to county administrators and other elected officeholders.
“These are not isolated political disagreements. They represent a continuing pattern involving delayed financial work, disrupted county operations, strained professional relationships and potential costs to taxpayers and community organizations,” the county GOP said, citing a 2024 WGLT report about delayed grant payments that caused the nonprofit McLean County Center for Human Services to fear for its long-term financial stability.
Democrats have not put forward a candidate for auditor since 2020. The same year, Anderson survived a primary challenge from Trisha Mallott, who was then the head of the county’s Behavioral Health Coordinating Council.
The county auditor seat is not up for election until 2028.
Anderson has not responded to a request for comment.
Recourse to remove
Beard said she hopes applying public pressure will prompt Anderson to resign. She said the Republican Party has identified someone who would primary Anderson in 2028 should she seek a fifth term.
“Regardless of which direction she would choose to go, we are ready to deal with that,” Beard said, declining to name that potential candidate.
County government has little recourse to remove an elected officeholder, short of a felony conviction.
Art Rodriguez, chair of the McLean County Veterans Assistance Commission, called for Anderson to step down in 2025 after his office encountered a series of roadblocks in securing funding for various programs, including one to help wounded veterans visit the outdoors.
“She’ll deny them for the stupidest reasons,” Rodriguez told WGLT, claiming Anderson would seek technicalities to deny requests for funding and then not make herself available to assist his staff to ensure their requests were corrected in the future.
"She just picks on arbitrary [county] departments, depending on her mood,” he said.
Beard said the county should have sought to remove a $5,000 surety bond that Anderson holds.
Rodriguez, a Republican who previously served as a Normal Township trustee, said he is building a claim against Anderson that would, if approved, remove that bond. He pointed to state statue which said removing that bond would force her to secure a replacement bond or would be unable to serve.
Rodriguez said he can point to multiple examples in which the auditor’s actions have put the county at risk and cost additional county staff time. He said he plans to reach out to county department heads to gather more evidence for such a claim and that he plans to submit by late September.
Rodriguez was critical of both parties in their handling of their disputes with the auditor. He said Republicans should have done more to challenge Anderson through the primaries, including providing more support to Mallott in her 2020 challenge. Anderson ran unopposed in 2024. He said Democrats should have done more to explain to voters in the runup to the 2024 referendum the problems they were having with the auditor’s office, in hopes voters would be more likely to support the referendum.
