Mid-Year Budget Hearings Continue for Cook County Board Finance Committee

CLERK OF THE COURT - Dorothy Brown
REVENUES 2020YTD (May 31, 2020)  are down.  
Budgeted:  $37,650,000  Actual:  $31,333,244  Variance: -$6,316,756   or -16.8%
EXPENSES 2020YTD (May 31, 2020) are down.
Budgeted:  $49,276,430  Actual:  $47.575.410  Variance:  $1,701,020  or 3.5%
Holdback:  $6,513,443 (achieved)
2021 Budgeted:  Not in report, nor on Legistar

Other Information from presentation:

• Criminal Case management system (through $37,000,000 contract with Tyler Technologies) is “working well”—Odyssey Program.  Civil and Traffic Management is still being programmed.  Not clear on which technology programs were up and running and which were still being worked on or not yet started.
• Almost all court procedures are being done virtually or by email, mobile app, website.
• Brown needed to pay “Hazard Pay” to get employees to come to work at court houses during COVID.  $1.9 million.  This will not be reimbursed by federal CARES money.  Some other Court expenses will be reimbursed, but Brown needs to apply for these funds.
• 1400 employees total.  30 were/are COVID positive.  Computers were purchased and borrowed for employees to take home to work from home.  85% of the total employees are back to work—many “are afraid and call out”  (call in sick), even though plexiglass barriers and PPE has been purchased/used.
• regarding Shakman:  Daley asked Brown for a road map toward compliance.  Brown said her team is working on it.
• Expungement program is a big and popular program and several commissioners commented on it and thanked Brown.  This removes the criminal records of certain individuals.  This can be done virtually and will be done again August 1-September 25.
• ​Has 207 open positions and has delayed hiring, which helped with the holdback. But hiring will begin again as it has been previously approved.

CHIEF JUDGE - Tim Evans
REVENUES:  YTD (May 31, 2020)  State of Illinois Salary Subsidies and Public Guardian Fees:  
Budgeted: $29,152,899 and $1,600,000, respectively. 
Actual:  $24,876,994 and $1,047,774  
Variance:  -$4,275,905  -14.7% and -$552,226   -34.5%
EXPENSES:  2020 Budget YTD:  $129,818,323  Actual:  $120,923,415
Variance:  $8,894,908   7%
Holdback:  $17,213,803  Achieved:  $14,643,203

Other Information from Presentation: 

• Court has been open to all except for civil and criminal jury trials.  All court proceedings  are being done by Zoom—virtually.
• Collections have fallen to 23%of target from March through May due to COVID.
• Three new Restorative Justice Courts are being set up:  Avondale (August 10), Englewood (August 3) and another which I didn't catch.  A fourth one will be at 26th and California (Leighton Courthouse) for all of Cook County.  These courts are designed to stop the revenge shootings that have occurred so often.
• All courts are open but almost all employees are working from home and are not in the courthouses and offices.  Evans is thinking about remote jury selection process once this starts again.  This would alleviate the large numbers of people coming to courthouses for jury selection process.  Also mentioned was using large venues like McCormick Place for jury trials to facilitate social distancing.
• The State Supreme Court as put a “toll” on speedy trials, since this is impossible to do now.
• Comm. Suffredin mentioned that because landlords, banks, credit card companies, etc. will be filing next week, there will be a fee spike which is good for revenue.
• The Charitable Bond Fund, passed by this CC Board, has bailed out 800 people for $2.8 million.

Observer - Karin Hribar