Cook County Independent Inspector General Wants More Cooperation from some Elected Officials

Cook County Board of Commissioners Finance Committee - Departmental Budget Hearings
October 30, 2017 (morning session)

Office of the President
Justice Advisory Council
Dept of Human Rights and Ethics
Inspector General
Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership 
Commissioners absent for all or most of the meetings:  Butler, Deer, Fritchey, Goslin, and Moody
Commissioners present:  Arroyo, Boykin, Daley, Garcia, Gainer,  Moore, Morrison, Schneider, Silvestri, Sims, Suffredin, & Tobolski.  

Items of Interest:  

• Most of the commissioners present commended the Office of the President for actually presenting a proposal to cut the budget for departments reporting to the President by 10%, although they wanted to know specific vacancies and in which departments.  Commissioners complained more about the Electeds who had been short on specifics and didn’t seem to appreciate that Cook County had a $200 million shortfall.  Morrison had been asking for a list of vacancies from the Electeds for a few weeks and requested Tanya Anthony follow up for him.
• John Culler (the Chief of Staff) and Tanya Anthony (the Budget Director) pointed out Cook County has a far more lean office of the president than New York, LA, or Maricopa County.
• Cook County is changing banks from Bank of America to Citibank thereby negotiating better interest payment terms, making the county an estimated $1 million more in interest each year.
• The Justice Advisory Council is six people tasked with reviewing and distributing grant monies to 56 different qualifying organizations for restorative justice, violence prevention, and recidivism reduction.  Commissioner Gainer wants to make sure that grant evaluation is effective to determine which recipient organizations are performing well, and asked to receive the 2016 grant evaluation report.  The JAC also oversees the newly received Macarthur Grant to be spent mostly to train police stations regarding public safety.  
• The Dept of Human Rights and Ethics is a small department overseeing vendor compliance, Shakman principles, minimum wage issues, and lobbyist requirements, among many tasks.  Commissioner Sims asked how the department was dealing with repeat public speakers at public meetings, with Mr. Hakim responding that public speakers have a strong constitutional right to be heard at public meetings.  Chair. Daley reminded Mr. Hakim that signs be placed outside of the board room to remind lobbyists they needed to wear badges to self-identify.
• The office of the Inspector General (OIG) was mostly praised by commissioners for performing its duties to detect and deter criminal activity in Cook County.  It was suggested that the County save money by having all the Electeds use the OIG rather than having individual internal inspectors funded in each Elected’s budget.  Inspector General Patrick Blanchard will address budget shortfalls by furloughing each of his 16 employees by 16 days over the fiscal year. 
• Mr. Blanchard stated the hardest part of the OIG’s job was collecting information from the Electeds.  The OIG has had trouble obtaining information from the Assessor, the Chief Judge, the Clerk of the Circuit Court, over the ten years of Blanchard’s tenure.
• When asked the status of the Berrios case, Blanchard replied the OIG can only make recommendations, which were upheld by the IL Supreme Court.
• Com. Tobolski stated he was tired of hearing about parts of Cook County where contracts had not been re-negotiated for ten years but continued to be paid “to friends”.  He hoped the bad old days of Cook County were ending.
• The Chicago Cook Workforce Development Partnership is revenue-neutral for Cook County.  They receive $70 million in workforce training dollars from the Dept of Labor block grants.  They train about 11,400 people each year.  The city of Chicago and Cook County have now combined efforts in this one organization.  They feed grants to over 50 agencies around Chicago and Cook County.

Observer - Amy Little