By JERRY NOWICKI
& DILPREET RAJU
Capitol News Illinois
news@capitolnewsillinois.com
Weeks after two high-profile resignations at the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday appointed the first-ever executive director to help lead the beleaguered agency.
To fill the newly created position, the governor tapped Jim Montgomery, who most recently served as director of administrative services with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department in Massachusetts. His prior experience includes several stints as an assistant to Illinois lawmakers in the 1990s, and eight years as mayor of Taylorville from 1997 until 2005.
Montgomery will be responsible for overseeing administrative board operations, including bolstering domestic violence prevention training and “other important equity-based trainings for board members,” according to the governor’s office. In a news release, the governor said the creation of the director position “reduces the workload placed on the PRB chair and allows for the chair to focus more closely on leading casework.”
The board has ultimate say on Montgomery’s salary, but the governor’s office said funds are available in the current-year budget and Montgomery will earn $160,000 annually – more than the board chair’s roughly $108,000 statutory salary.
The board currently has no chair, as the office’s previous holder, Donald Shelton, resigned on March 25 along with board member LeAnn Miller.
In February, Miller led a hearing to determine whether an inmate, Crosetti Brand, should be released from Stateville Correctional Center amid allegations that he’d violated an order of protection against his ex-girlfriend, Laterria Smith, by threatening her. The board found insufficient evidence and he was released on March 12.
One day later, Brand attacked Smith, stabbing her and killing her eleven-year-old son Jayden Perkins when he tried to intervene.
Read more: Prisoner Review Board chair, member resign in wake of boy’s fatal stabbing by released inmate
Pritzker appointed Miller to the Prisoner Review Board in September 2021 and her term wasn’t due to expire until January 2027 . The governor said earlier this month the resignation “was probably a proper decision on her part” and said the panel she led “didn’t take into consideration enough the domestic violence history of this particular prisoner.”
Shelton had served on the board since 2012 and was appointed as a Republican. Pritzker said Shelton “served admirably” but didn’t provide a reason for his resignation. Shelton told WTTW-TV in Chicago he resigned out of personal responsibility, but he also defended Miller and pushed back against the governor’s statements about the decision.
The PRB has a proposed headcount of 59 employees in the upcoming fiscal year, up from 51 in the current year. Its proposed budget is $5.4 million. Montgomery’s appointment awaits Senate confirmation.
