Cook County Sheriff Budget Hearing

Cook County Board Finance Committee Departmental Budget Hearings
Nov. 5, 2020
Cook County Sheriff - Tom Dart
Proposed Budget for 2021 - $573,162,818                    Proposed # of FTEs for 2021 - 5560
Budget for 2020 - $598,867,299                                   FTEs in 2020 Budget - 5866
Difference - Decrease of $25,704,481                          Difference - Decrease of 306


Highlights of the Sheriff’s Presentation:

1. Sheriff Dart told the Commissioners that he could live within the reduced budget this year for a number of reasons. The 306 positions that were eliminated were vacancies so he did not have to rely on layoffs. The lack of evictions and the use of zoom in many courtrooms led to less officers being deployed in these areas. He could now use them in the jail. However he stressed multiple times that should these situations change or if he sees more retirements during the year (he normally sees 30-40 each month) he may be in need of more personnel.
2. He stressed his Covid response as being a model for all jails and prisons in the nation. He touted his 2.6% positivity rate for detainees and staff as proof that testing, social distancing and hand sanitizer works. He credits his staff with reopening many divisions that were long closed. He also gave great praise to Dr. Connie Manella at Cermak Health, the detainees’ health center.
3. He stressed his frugality over the last 14 years during his leadership. He said that expenditures have gone down $130 million and that employee numbers have been reduced over 1300 during these years.
4. He said that CC Jail is a model for family visitation, currently taking place outside, but will move to a “bubble” during the winter months. He includes testing of family members if they want. He said that CC Jail was the first jail in the nation to do these things.
5. He also said that CC Jail was the first jail in the nation to have a polling place inside. He has worked with universities in order to get teachers inside to conduct classes dealing with this election and voter guides.
6. He talked at length about the other programs run by his office, especially Community Policing and Treatment Response Team. These involve having sheriff’s police respond to 911 calls that result in the de-escalation of incidents, especially those involving mentally ill arrestees.
7. He touted his Drug Take Back Program which involves sites where citizens can drop unused prescription or non prescription drugs. This has resulted in over 25 million pills being destroyed, a fact that is great for the environment and for those addicted to some of these drugs.
8. He talked at length about the Electronic Monitoring (EM) Program. As the CC Jail has been reduced in population (about 5500 detainees now) the EM population has gone up in the past year to 3000, an increase of about 1000 people. In addition, his office receives requests for movement from about half of these folks almost every day. His office has only about 20 officers to monitor this program. He asked the board for suggestions. He also was very concerned about the number of people on EM who were charged with serious crimes. EM was not designed for this. He has a goal of placing all EM recipients on GPS.
9. Finally, the sheriff is very concerned about the length of stay for both detainees at the jail and on EM. He has tried to work with the Public Defender’s office about this issue. Many board members stated that the Chief Judge would appear before them tomorrow (Nov. 6th) and that they would bring up this issue.

Highlights of the Commissioners’ Questions:
It was difficult to see if all 17 Commissioners were present. At least 14 of them asked questions.

1. Chairman Daley asked if the people on EM were committing new crimes while on this device. The Sheriff would get back to him with numbers. Also discussed were the reasons for the delays in adjudication of cases. The Sheriff said some delays were caused by attorneys who got too many delays from some judges. Also Covid is causing everything to slow down as more courtrooms rely on Zoom for preliminary hearings.
2. Commissioner Deer asked about a community policing program in Austin. The Sheriff said that they have an office at Chicago and Lockwood that works with kids after school.
3. Commissioner Johnson asked how the Sheriff’s special programs could be measured for success. All programs should be measured for the positive impact they have on the targeted population. He wanted to know how the Sheriff would go about this. The Sheriff agreed that studies and data were needed. He had some preliminary studies on the mental health program for detainees who went through it and were 60 to 90 days released. He admitted that after that,  he did not have good data. He asked for help in getting this data.
4. Commissioner Miller asked about the training for the “use of force”. The Sheriff responded that his training in this area has become a model for suburban departments. She also asked about “non-traditional community policing”. The Sheriff talked about establishing trust within a community. He was able to do this by working on school truancy, getting kids hooked up to the internet for school, demolition of abandoned buildings, offering free Covid testing, offering free Flu shots, etc.
5. Vice Chairman Sims thanked the Sheriff for his help in policing Ford Heights, Dixmoor, and Robbins.
6. Commissioner Anaya asked about the yearly costs of jailing a detainee vs. placing him on EM. The Sheriff responded that jail was approximately $70,000 per detainee per year vs. $9000 per year for EM. She also asked about the possibility of the Chief Judge taking over the whole EM program. The Sheriff said that it was still a possibility, but that he would like to retain control over those detainees that were in one of his special programs.
7. Commissioner Suffredin asked about this year’s budget reduction of $25.7 million and how impacted his office would be. The Sheriff responded that the cuts were more like $68 million if you added up all of the costs of new programs that he wanted to propose. He said that he would live within his means mostly through attrition of staff. He did not think he would need to cut any programs.
   
8. All of the Commissioners asked if any of his special programs were duplications of programs that already exist in the community. The Sheriff said that many of them might be, but while he had these detainees in custody he wanted get them the help they needed. Once released, part of his Discharge Plan was to get them set up with housing and with community programs so that he did not see them cycle through the jail again.

The Sheriff and the Commissioners seemed to have great respect for each other. There were many friendly greetings and compliments and a real desire to improve public safety in Cook County.

Observed by Jan Goldberg                                                                      Meeting Length - about 3 hours