Cook County Board Meeting

January 4, 2011

The board meeting was preceded by a Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee meeting to review the appointment of Ms. Robin Kelly as the Chief Administrative Officer. In her presentation to the committee she indicated that she would be overseeing a reorganization of the Administrative Bureau that is overseen by the Cook County President. The committee approved her appointment.

The Board Meeting was called to order promptly at 10am by President Preckwinkle. Comm. Fritchey and Comm. Reyes were absent. After spending 30 minutes devoted to a resolution recognizing Organ Donor Awareness Day in Cook County, the meeting was recessed for committee meetings.

During the Finance Committee Meeting the following issues were discussed:

• Comm. Gainer again requested that the Chief Judge's Office provide a rundown of the grant money spent in the Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program that his office has been conducting for the past several months. Comm. Collins stated that she did not understand why the county had to give the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) money to do housing counseling in this mediation program when there are plenty of other agencies that provide this service and get funding from other sources.


• Comm. Daley asked Comm. Silvestri if the Litigation Subcommittee would be providing the information on remedial action taken in the civil rights cases that come before the board. A request was previously made to obtain information from the Sheriff's Office concerning action taken against employees that were named in law suits. Comm. Silvestri stated that the information would be supplied in a confidential manner that is in accordance with the law on disclosing such information. Comm. Gainer reported that the Sheriff's Office is working on a tracking system for incidents that occur in an effort to decrease the outflow of money in settlements.


• The comptroller's preliminary Revenue Report for fiscal year 2010 indicates a shortfall of $30.2m. The amount of revenue from the home rule taxes was down but the comptroller stated that was in line with what the state and the city also saw and was not unique to the county. The revenue from patient fees was under by $2m. Mr. Ayres, CCHHS CFO, stated that $40m in claims have been submitted to the state in medicaide claims that are waiting to be processed.


• Comm. Daley asked Mr Ayres if the issues with the billing for physicians services had been rectified. Mr. Ayres stated that there was an ongoing training for physicians to correct the billing procedures. This billing has been done incorrectly for several years and changing the process requires retraining and adjustment to the system which should be completed by the end of the summer.


• Mr Ayres was asked if the $500m revenue estimate provided in the HHS 2011 budget is realistic. He stated that it would be difficult to reach but possible depending on medicaide changes at the state. Further discussion revealed that the county has attempted to make an arrangement with the state to provide some financial resources to expedite the processing of the $40m in medicaide claims for the county so that payment on qualified claims would be forthcoming soon. Mr. Ayres also indicated that the contract with Med Assets, the company with the contract for medicaide qualification, was bought out, and Price, Waterhouse, Coopers is now doing this service.

The Board Meeting resumed at 11:45am amd most items on the board agenda were referred to committee so there was minimal discussion during the meeting.

• There was a notification to the board of the salaries of some Grade 24 employees. Comm. Collins wanted to know again why the board had to be notified about these salaries. Comm. Daley explained that the reason was that they board needed to be aware of new Grade 24 hires or salary adjustments since these are Shakman exempt positions.


• Comm. Suffredin introduced an ordinance amendment based on a new state statute that requires all public bodies to approve the minutes of their meetings within 30 days. He stated that the journals of the CC Board Meetings have not been approved since 1998. Based on this new law there will now be a standing Rules Committee Meeting at 9:45am prior to each board meeting to approve the corrected journals of the previous meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:35pm.