During a combative meeting Tuesday night, Thornton Township trustees refused to approve events they say invite reckless spending on the part of Supervisor Tiffany Henyard, who has been under consistent scrutiny for financial mismanagement as township supervisor and Dolton mayor.

Henyard railed against Trustees Chris Gonzalez, Carmen Carlisle and Gerald Jones for voting to cancel Gospel Fest, House Fest and bingo, saying the events predate her administration. The board OK’d the monthly Tech Savvy event, which provides technology skills training, with a reduced budget.

An ordinance passed last month requires trustees to sign off on event budgets before money is committed or spent. Henyard scheduled a special meeting Aug. 29 to similarly try to approve certain events as well as amend recently passed ordinances, but no trustees showed.

Trustees Carlisle and Gonzalez said Tuesday the township needs to rein in spending as they are operating without an approved budget.

“We can’t continue to spend money without that in place,” Gonzalez said. “And even beyond that, I mean we had a couple of events here in the past month or so that just an extraordinary amount of money was spent unnecessarily.”

Trustees also again denied payment of bills for goods and services they say were symptomatic of Henyard’s excessive spending.

Before that vote, Henyard demanded that Carlisle, who moved to exclude the 160 items she said were unnecessary to township operations, read each expense aloud for the sake of transparency.

When Carlisle did not, Henyard asked the same of finance director Robert Hunt, who reported tens of thousands of dollars spent through township credit cards, including at retailers such as Amazon and Walmart, and for services to media and entertainment companies.

“People just nitpick things they want to not approve and not do what’s right,” Henyard said after Hunt read all the denied expenses.

ostevens@chicagotribune.com