Cook County Board of Commissioners - Finance Committee
Departmental Budget Hearing
October 30, 2019: 

Commissioners Absent: Deer, Gainer, Tobolski, Sean Morrison 

Clerk of the Circuit Court:  Dorothy Brown

• Clerk’s office is still working on transfer of court case system to digital with Tyler Technology.  Veterans Day 3 day weekend will go live with Crimiinal Courts, MLK weekend 2020 will be Civil Courts, and Kasamir Pulaski weekend will be Traffic Courts.  Electronic Court Order System will occur in Spring of 2020.
• Shakman update includes the Clerk’s filing of an interim employment plan in July with an exempt employee list filed.  All 1400 employees have been trained on Shakman.  They are in the process of training management on how to interview based on the interim plan.  Their remaining job is to agree on the final employment plan and hire a Director of Compliance.  
• Clerk’s budget request is $8 million more than the President’s budget at $100 million.  Most of the increase is due to the need to hire more court recorders since they are an aging workforce and have an absentee rate of 20% every day!  They can only promote from within and need to hire more people to fill the lower positions. Much of this absenteeism is due to leaves of absence.  She also needs more floaters for Cannabis Expungement paperwork, since the Public Defender plans to expunge 150,000 cases in 2020. They must inform police departments and individuals by mail.  Contractual services will cost $359,000 more mostly for postage.  New case filings have slightly increased and the number of e-filings has increased from 750,000 in 2018  to 2.7 million this year since it is now mandatory,
• The clerk is trying to get all Cook County police departments to become E-sophisticated and issue electronic traffic tickets, although there is resistance due to the need for printers in police cars. There are 28 departments doing e-tickets with 16, including Chicago, yet to switch to electronic. The Clerk’s office has invested nearly 37,000 hours of training on electronic systems.  
• Com. Britton, an attorney, complained that e-filing at his office experienced 3 outages in 6 weeks.  The Clerk explained that as they migrate to the cloud (called Odyssey) there are still glitches in the bridge programming with Tyler Technologies.  Com. Anaya asked  the Clerk to keep them abreast of Shakman developments.  Com. Miller asked about negative balances in the Special Purpose Funds and Tanya Anthony explained the County is working at eliminating all these funds in each department’s budget.  Com. Degnen asked very detailed questions about why Expungement help had to be full time, not temporary, how going electronic was supposed to eliminate headcount, not expand it, and why are there more cashiers, not fewer, since the County is increasingly going to electronic filing and payment with credit cards.  The Clerk responded that the process was so complex in going digital that they have been trying to reduce people but for so many reasons, have been unable to.  
• Electronic kiosks will be available in all courtroom areas to help people find cases and courtroom numbers.  Information will be available in Spanish, Polish, and English.

Recorder of Deeds:   Ed Moody

• Recorder Moody believes that the office will soon have Shakman compliance.  Employees have been trained, they have job descriptions, and they have annual performance reviews.  There is an Employment manual in place.  His new Director of HR was head of the County’s Compliance office previously, so has much needed experience.
• He believes the Recorder of Deeds office is fully ready to be merged with the County Clerk’s area within 2 months.  He is ready for “lights off” in December of 2020.
• ​The Recorder’s office has increased revenue and reduced costs, with 108 FTEs in 2019 versus 120 in 2018.  He is requesting a budget 3% lower than 2019 and will  bring $1 million back to the county this year.  He believes he is on track to bring his actuals in at 15% below 2019 budget.
• Outside expenses incurred for Professional Services are for converting the old Deed books from 1871-1959 to digital format (scanning) and moving microfilm deeds from 1959-1971, likewise to digital.  These were emergency expenditures but 2020 needs will go through RFP process.
• Coms. Anaya, Britton, Miller, and Degnen complemented Recorder Moody on a good job.

County Clerk:  Karen Yarborough

• Now voter signatures for filing petitions can be viewed on-line at various offices rather than having to come downtown to check.  Birth certificates can be obtained on-line. The new voting machines have been universally praised by everyone who has tested them.  They come in an easy-to-handle carrier.
• Com. Anaya asked why the $1.5 million increase in special purpose fund, to which the response was, the election in 2020.  Com. Degnen told the Clerk that her office was there to help in whatever way she could to make the merger with the Recorder go smoothly.  Coms. Britton and Kevin Morrison thanked the Clerk for helping to get passed the Voter Participation Ordinance in time for the November 2020 election.  There will be 7 early voting sites in jails next year.
• Deputy Clerk of Elections, Ed Mikalowski said that due to a much better relationship with Chicago Board of Elections, voting records and communication will be much easier.  He praised the LWV Cook County for helping to bring certain awareness and insight to the choice of voting machines. 

Office of Inspector General:  Patrick Blanchard

• This office has 16 employees, with 2 at Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) and 1 at Stroger.  It handled 551 complaints in 2018 vs. 554 complaints so far in 2019.   A 9% increase in salaries for 3 positions with a long standing salary disparity are included in this budget. MWRD services are billed on an hourly basis. They have done outreach and 70 trainings on filing internal complaints for MWRD employees (4 times more headcount than the Forest Preserve District).  Quarterly reports of billing and complaints can be found online on the MWRD site and Cook County.  This office also looks at employment plans on behalf of the Shakman rules to make sure departments are within compliance.

Observer - Amy Little

Cook County Board Finance Committee - Budget Hearings  
Oct. 23, 20018 afternoon session

Cook County Land Bank
Cook County Clerk
Recorder of Deeds

Commissioners Present: Daley, Boykin, Silvestri, Morrison, Goslin, Schneider, Gainer, Moody and Deer.

​As the observer for this meeting, I was struck by 2 things. The reports went extremely quickly especially  compared to last year. This year no department took over 20 minutes as compared to well over an hour each last year. Also the commissioners asked very few substantive questions. Mostly they had comments and compliments for the heads of each department.

Highlights of each department include:

Cook County Land Bank 
Director Rob Rose explained the mission of the land bank is to buy up abandoned and foreclosed properties and resell them to potential owners at reduced prices. The main group of buyers for these properties are homeowners. The main geographic areas of focus are the west and south sides of Chicago and the southern suburbs. When no buyers can be found, the Land Bank is responsible for upkeep of the property including lawn care and snow removal.
Some of their successes include:

• They are on track to meet their performance management goal of acquiring 800 properties by the end of this year. Next year they hope to reach 1000. They started in 2014 with only 34 properties.
• They have rehabbed over 350 of these properties so far and have sold over 275 of these.
• Their budget is completely self-supporting as of last year. This has been achieved through sales and grants.
• They have been working with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) on flooding issues. For example, Riverside Lawn, an unincorporated area next to the suburb of Riverside, has serious flooding issues due to the DesPlaines River. The land bank has acquired problem areas and turned these into green spaces that absorb the water overflow. This process included buying out some homeowners whose properties continued to flood, razing the properties, and turning the land into green space.
• Their goal next year is to sell over 400 more properties .

Commissioners Gainer and Boykin thanked Mr. Rose for his great work and leadership.


Cook County Clerk:
David Orr  explained that his office is not just about elections, though it seems that way at this time of the year. His office handles tax revenue collection from over 1500 separate taxing bodies in Cook County. And if you want to get married in Cook County his office provides the certificate.
During his tenure as Clerk, Mr. Orr cited some successes:

• There will be new voting equipment for the next election cycle. He hoped to have it ready this year but one of the losing vendors sued. He said this was a pattern with this company.
• His new election website is up 107% in viewers  so far this election season.
• His budget has not gone up at all in recent years. He is asking for 14 less FTE’s for fiscal 2019.
• Online marriage certificate applications are now available. About 1/2 of all new couples have used this application.
• Taxing bodies can now use an online system to file their information with the county. About 1/2 are now doing so.
• Early voting and mail-in ballots are up. On the first day of early voting (Oct.22) there were already 25,000 votes case in suburban Cook. This is a record for the midterm elections.

Commissioners Daley, Gainer, Boykin, and Morrison thanked him for his years of service and for making the Clerk’s office more efficient and professional.
Commissioner Silvestri thanked him for making a paper back- up ballot mandatory when using the touchscreen.
Commissioner Schneider said that he has defended the Clerk’s performance vehemently over the years whenever the right wing of his party criticized him.
Lots of good luck wishes could be heard as he left the room.

Recorder of Deeds
Karen Yarbrough said that her office always brings in more money than she spends. Since she took over in 2012 her numbers of FTE’s are down 50%. Some of her successes include:

• Online filings. These are up 55% so far this year.
  
• She has been running seminars throughout the county. One example is the “Property After Death” seminar that has been well attended.
  
• She will be rolling out a new “blockchain” technology next year. This will include a flat fee schedule for each document instead of a price per page.       
  

Commissioners Boykin and Moody thanked her for her seminars and service.  They both complimented her on how professionally the office was run since she took over. Commissioner Boykin also thanked her for saving Fred Hampton’s house in Maywood. This house (the childhood home of the Black Panther leader) was still in the family. The underwater mortgage was something that was unknown to the family after the owner’s death. Ms. Yarbrough worked on getting the mortgage manageable with the help of pro bono legal help.

Commissioner Morrison asked about the merger between her office and the clerk’s office. She said that no talks have begun yet on formulating a plan for the merger. In other counties, she said the county boards have given out plans for such a merger, but she has not received any instructions from this board. But she has plans to get the 2 staff groupings together early next year. David Orr has also promised to help with this process. She has a team in place to instruct her on the workings of the Clerk’s office.

Observer -  Jan Goldberg 

Cook County Board Finance Committee - July 24, 2018
Midyear Budget Hearing - Day 2 - afternoon session

Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas had the shortest meeting of all:  

• She announced she was $20,000 under budget, asked for questions, and hearing none, thanked everyone, and left.

Cook County Inspector General's Office:

• The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) is looking into using the Cook County Inspector General’s office for its Inspector General (IG) needs.  MWRD allotted $600,000 for its IG needs.
• Comm. Suffredin asked if it might be possible to bill themselves out to other agencies or governments for Cook County revenue generation. 
• They will be within their budget.

Recorder of Deeds, Karen Yarborough, presented her budget at 2pm. 

• She touted her reduction in employees from 200 to 125 over her tenure, and that she had instituted a Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) monitoring system. 
• Her office is in “substantial Shakman compliance” (but still being overseen).
• Commissioner Sims commiserated with Recorder Yarborough about how difficult it is going to be to combine the County Clerk's Office with that of the Recorder of Deeds office.  Yarborough agreed about how it would cost lots more money to combine (no firm estimate).  She said the big problem was that their cashiering functions used entirely different systems.
• Suffredin suggested she try to monetize free services the Recorder of Deeds now offers, like fraud alert of “transfer at death” services, just as the Board of Review has instituted a bulk filing fee.
• Most of the commissioners spent considerable time lavishing praise on Recorder Yarborough for her distinguished service.

Clerk of the Circuit Court, Dorothy Brown, relied most of the time on the comptroller to discuss the details of her budget and whether she would be within it. 

• She will meet her budget mostly due to furlough days. 
• She complained about how many more man-hours were required under the e-filing system.  She said she has had to pull employees from Traffic and Criminal areas to help pro se citizens file their suits in the Civil division.  Commissioner Sims offered helpful advice like “closed circuit TV”.  Brown said she needed to have screen shots blown up as posters. (Public education should have been part of the rollout.)
• Most commissioners sympathized with her for her dedicated employees having to take furlough days and pay cuts.  When Com. Tobolski asked if she could stay within her budget for next year, she said she needed more people.  He asked if she would be willing to go to the voters to talk about her need for more money in the Circuit Court.  No specific numbers were discussed.  
• Com. Boykin said she had done a lot with a little.

Chief Judge Tim Evans is running at 2% over budget. 

• He took credit for reducing the jail population from 10,000 to 6,131 which has helped reduce overtime needs (in the Sheriff’s budget). 
• Judge Evans will reduce his budget by closing two courts at Wentworth and 51st and Belmont and Western by September 1.  Cases will be moved from Belmont and Western to Grand and Central for the most part.  Wentworth and 51st cases will probably move to California and 26th.  He will try to reach a  5.1% reduction for 2019 by further closing Walnut and moving those employees to California and 26th.
• Probation officers handle on average 75 cases per person.  Similar officers in Washington DC have 25 cases per person.  Electronic monitoring and GPS monitoring for protective orders must also be assigned to a probation officer.
• With the new public assessment tool, 90% of defendants are showing up for their court dates.
• Two pods at the Juvenile Detention Center have been closed since the population is down with a 22 person decrease  in headcount, but have had to fill in with overtime due to FMLA.

Budget hearings were adjourned at 4pm.  Commissioners Garcia, Sims, Daley, Silvestri, Tobolski, Deer, Boykin, Moore, Moody, and Suffredin were present for most of the budget hearings.

Observer - Amy Little

Cook County Board of Commissioners Board Meeting - April 12, 2017

At the end of the Finance Committee that preceded the Board Meeting, a report from the Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS) CFO stated that the state owes $45 million to the county for FY16.  There is a match that the county makes to the state that is required to meet the federal match and CCHHS makes expedited payments to the state in order to get the money back from the federal government. The money is actually driven down by the CFO and hand delivered to the state office in order to prevent the continued delay from the state regarding not yet receiving the match money from the county!  

Comm. Boykin asked Dr. Jay Shannon, CCHHS CEO, to explain the status of the gun violence reduction study being done by CCHHS.  Dr. Shannon said that the study continues, but preliminary results show major stresses on families and communities are similar to the stresses that researchers are finding with children in Syria!  Trauma Informed Care is showing that the trauma of living in a continued state of stress leads to chronic behavioral problems and ultimately to physical disease.  He described it as a cascading problem.  CCHHS is targeting community based care which will offer social and mental health support in the affected communities. The goal is for CCHHS to get into the community,  and better results will occur.  Comm. Steele suggested looking at mental health awareness.  Comm. Sims then offered her own experience of visiting with families and educating families about resources available.  Dr. Shannon explained that almost anything can be accomplished if the resources are available. Comm. Sims then said that she thought they all would agree to find a way and she suggested that the Dept of Human Services should take the lead. There are other models in the country where communities have put through referendums to tax the affected community in order to financially support the needed services. 

During Public Comment two women from the violence impacted communities provided emotional testimony and one stated that she was with the Warriors on the Watch. They described needed services and support for neighborhoods filled with liquor stores and abandoned houses. They expressed anger about guns and gangs and kids dying in the street. They asked for work “in our communities, so we don’t have to duck and die."  One called out Comm. Sims and said she is in the suburbs, not the west side.  Both were verbally supported by comments from Mr. George Blakemore.

Significant Issues Discussed and/or Action Taken:

• The Administrative Office of IL Courts (AOIC) is paying the county for probation officers (including juvenile), but slowly. Cook County is owed over $30 million and  the costs are about $3.7 million/month. 
• There was discussion from the interim director of Homeland Security (the last director was removed by Preckwinkle in November), regarding a grant from federal Homeland Security. Comm. Suffredin questioned the rules and budgeting of the grant.  He referred to a grant from last year, poorly managed, that resulted in the county having to come up with a significant amount of money to make the grant whole.  Homeland Security will monitor the new grant closely and will supply quarterly reports.
• Monitoring of the merger of the offices of the County Clerk/Recorder of Deeds was moved to the legislative committee. 
• Comm. Boykin’s resolution urging suburban-neighborhood innovation partnerships  is being expanded and will be reintroduced next month. (Agenda Item 17-2736)
• John Yonan, Superintendent, Dept of Transportation and Highways, answered questions from Comm. Suffredin regarding the request for $1,120,000 for 1.1 miles of road in Palatine that divides the oldest Forest Preserve in Cook County.  As the original request dates back to 7/12/2005, Superintendent Yonan explained that the bid includes an environmental and engineering study, which were never done. As I live within 5 miles of this forest preserve and understand the sensitivity of the area, I was very interested in the discussion.  The forest preserve is in Comm. Goslin’s district. He asked no questions.
• Approved a contract request from the Public Defender for the Safer Foundation that provides confirmation reports to judges that defendants are safe to be released.  Safer Foundation verifies information regarding defendants with low bonds and gives confidence to the judges. This is in collaboration with the MacArthur Foundation, the Justice Advisory Council and the Public Defender Office, to provide services for individuals with low bonds who have remained in jail for extended periods due to failure to post bond.
• Approved as substituted the $36m technology contract for Office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County - Dorothy Brown’s office - that includes money for outside oversight of the contract. 

 
Observer - Laura Davis                                                              Meeting:   9:45 to 12:45