Category: Independent Inspector General

Cook County Board Business Conducted At Lightening Speed After 2 Hour Retirement Ceremony

12/20/2019

Cook County Board of Commissioners Meeting
December 19, 2019

The Board devoted the first 2 hours of their meeting to the honoring of retiring employee Martha Martinez, former Commissioner Jerry Butler, and the late Reverend Clay Evans. Testimonials lauded Martinez for thirty-four years of exemplary service. Former Commissioner Jerry Butler received a touching tribute from the Board. HIs career as a popular vocal artist and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was noted. Commissioner Butler sang one of his hits, “Let It Be Me” to the delight of all present. The late Reverend Clay Evans was honored as an icon of the black community and for his work on civil rights with Dr. Martin Luther King.

Action Items:

Agenda Item 20-0016- The proposed amendment to the Inspector General ordinance regarding reports and public statements was referred to the legislative committee. It requires that the IG share a statement with the head of the affected department and not issue a public statement for ten days. If the department has a response, this must be attached to the public statement. The Civic Federation supported this amendment during the public comment period.
Agenda Item 20-0735- The Board unanimously passed a resolution supporting federal universal background checks for firearms. It is hoped that this will add pressure for passage of gun control legislation in Washington.
Agenda Item 20-0721- The Board unanimously passed a resolution to support refugee resettlement efforts in Cook County. Several agencies testified to the challenge of working under current punitive federal policy.
Agenda Item 20-0437- Approved an intergovernmental agreement between the pension fund and Cook County. In 2016 the pension was 54% funded. $306.2 million will be contributed for 2020. This infusion of funds has now raised the percentage funded to 68%, one of the highest in the state.
Agenda Item 20-0732 - Changes in committee chairmanships were approved. These new assignments will give greater responsibility to the newer members of the Board.
Agenda Item 20-0658 - Proposed tax on cannabis was referred to the finance committee.
Agenda Item 20-1831- Board approved a commission chaired by Britton to create a new design for the county flag. The deadline is 2021 when the county celebrates its 190th anniversary. High school students will be asked to submit designs in a competition.
Agenda Item 20-0726 - Board approved a resolution to support Cook County Health’s construction of a new Provident Hospital. It also provides for the Cook County Board Health & Hospital Committee to hold a hearing to receive an update on the project.
Agenda Item 20-0712 - Board approved a resolution to discuss the Cook County Health Formulary Program. The resolution describes how insurance companies use “step therapy” in an effort to control drug costs. Step therapy is when patients first try the less costly drugs to see if they work. This can delay patients getting the treatment they need.
Agenda Item 20-0011 - Proposed ordinance regarding zoning for recreational cannabis was referred to committee.
Agenda Item 20-0579- Board approved authority for Public Defender to accept $500,000 grant to aid data analytics.

Commissioners Daley, Deer, Suffredin, Arroyo, Sylvestri, Gainer and Moore thanked Dr. Shannon (CCH) for his service to Cook County Health. Dr. Shannon was present and acknowledged their kind words.

Observer - Georgia Gebhardt Meeting Length: 3 hours, 20 minutes (includes 40 minute lunch break)

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Cook County Budget Hearings Continue

10/31/2019

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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

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Cook County Board Approves Intergovernmental Agreement with MWRD for Independent Inspector General Services

5/2/2019

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Cook County Board of Commissioners Meeting- April 25, 2019

Notable Items Passed:

The Board approved an amendment (Agenda Item 19-3024) to the ordinance covering the Office of Independent Inspector General (OIIG) that will allow the OIIG to provide services pursuant to any intergovernmental agreement approved by the Board of Commissioners to which the OIIG is a party (Cook County Code, section 2-284 #14) and to provide services pursuant to a memorandum of understanding to any agency funded by the County Board to which the OIIG is a party and the OIIG determines that a memorandum of understanding is applicable or preferred (Cook County Code, section 2-284 #15). The Board then approved the proposed intergovernmental agreement with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) for the OIIG to provide services to the District (Agenda Item 19-3027). The League testified in support of this intergovernment agreement at the MWRD the week before, and sent a letter of support to the Cook County Board prior to the vote.
The Board approved a proposed amendment to the Human Relations - Housing section of the Cook County Code that will require landlords to determine if someone can qualify for a property before the landlord can ask about criminal history, and delayed the effective date for this amendment for 6 months. Commissioners discussed the importance of clear guidelines for small landlords in the rule making process in order to make clear what is needed for compliance. A question was raised regarding whether “rules” come back to the Board for review, and the answer was yes. (Agenda Item 19-2394)
The Board approved the Report and Amended Resolution from the Litigation Subcommitte following the Committee’s hearing on the status of the Shakman cases in the Offices of the Assessor, Clerk of the Court, and Recorder of Deeds. (Agenda Item 19-2242) Court-appointed oversight of these offices has been ongoing for 9 years for the Assessor, 7 years for the Recorder, and since last year for the Clerk. Much work needs still to be done before they can be found to be in substantial compliance with the Shakman decisions, which prohibit political considerations with regard to the hiring, firing, promotion, or pay of all but a few “exempt” employees. These cases have cost the County millions of dollars. The Commissioners at the hearing on Tuesday emphasized the need for these offices to come into compliance as soon as possible. The Subcommittee amended the hearing resolution to provide for quarterly hearings on these matters. The League testified in support of such regular oversight by the Subcommittee, and the Subcommittee utilized the questions submitted by the League during the hearing on April 23

Other items of interest:

The Board approved a contract with the Adult Probation Department, Circuit Court of Cook County and Loyola University to develop and implement a recidivism reduction program for high-risk probationers. This plan will “include an in-depth implementation fidelity review plan, a process evaluation plan, and an outcome evaluation plan”. The contract period is 5/01/2019 - 9/30/2021. (Agenda Item 19-2519)
Com. Kevin Morrison questioned a contract for disposable kitchen supplies for the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. Com. Morrison asked if the contract looked at compostable, biodegradable or reusable supplies.

Future items:

A proposed ordinance regarding establishing civil fees and criminal and traffic assessments collected by the Clerk of the Circuit Court Cook County was referred to the Finance Committee. The Criminal and Traffic Assessment Act restructures criminal, traffic and civil fees in the circuit courts in Illinois in order to consolidate fees into unified schedules. (Agenda Item 19-2843)

Observer - Laura Davis. Meeting Length - 2 hours and 10 minutes when observer left - ongoing

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Cook County Board Business Conducted At Lightening Speed After 2 Hour Retirement Ceremony

Cook County Budget Hearings Continue

Cook County Board Approves Intergovernmental Agreement with MWRD for Independent Inspector General Services

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