The Illinois Attorney General's Office is being asked to take over an investigation into allegations of corruption in Rock Island County.
States Attorney John McGehee said Tuesday that he will ask Lisa Madigan's office to look into claims first raised in a whistleblower lawsuit filed earlier this year by a former county worker.
"They have a Public Integrity unit with the State of Illinois so I'm going to be referring it to that bureau for particular review," McGehee said.
The suit filed by former Human Resources director Meg Hoskins claims she was asked to inflate hours worked by a few county board members so they could claim pensions.
The suit alleges that Hoskins was asked by board secretary Shelly Chapman to count hours worked on behalf of the Forest Preserve to count toward the 1,000 hours required to qualify for pensions as county board members.
Hoskins says the Illinois Municpal Retirement Fund rules prohibit combining the two, but was allegedly told by Chapman to do it anyway, and "hope that IMRF would not notice the discrepancy."
McGehee asked the Illinois State Police to conduct a review to see if the allegations rise to the need of a criminal investigation at this point.
On Tuesday, he said he had the report in hand, but wouldn't talk about the outcome.
He said he will let the Attorney General's Office take it from here.
"I think it's the prudent and proper thing to do," McGehee said.