Commissioner Peter Silvestri welcomed the dozen members of the League of Women Voters of Oak Park & River Forest who had come to observe the meeting at the invitation of the Cook County League. Commissioner Bridget Gainer lauded the Cook County League for the information the League's Study Committee had pulled together concerning the Special Purpose Funds that was submitted to the Commissioners on Jan. 28. The regular Board meeting went into recess for committee meetings.
Finance Committee
Commissioner Sims and Murphy continued their practice of voting no to payments approved by the federal court in ongoing court cases involving the Shakman decree which prohibits hiring, promotion, or firing of County employees based on politics, except for "exempt" positions.
The Committee approved the Performance Based Management and Budgeting ordinance proposed by President Preckwinkle at the last Board meeting. This requires each County department to submit a Quarterly Record to the President that will define the department's mission and establish measurable goals for achieving results. The President, after review, will transmit these Quarterly Records to the Board for review. Each department shall also submit each quarter a Budget Resource Allocation Plan to identify resources required to execute priority outcomes outlined in the Quarterly Records. This Allocation Plan shall also identify which services are mandated by law and justify any non-mandated services. The President (or designee), Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Administrative Officer will review the Allocation Plans to determine the department's effectiveness and whether continued, increased, or decreased funding is justified. These Allocation Plans shall also be submitted to the Board. Look for this proposed ordinance to be on the Board's agenda at the next meeting on Feb. 15.
Resumption of Board meeting
There were a series of 18 New Items to the agenda, 16 of which had not been posted ahead of the meeting, and, in fact, as of Feb. 2, are still not posted on the Clerk's web site. They were made available via e-mail from the Secretary to the Board to this observer (and others on the list to receive notices by e-mail) the evening of Feb. 1. All but two of these items are amendments to ordinances. Two of these are amendments dealing with the County Ethics ordinance that were referred to the Rules Committee. Another new item was a proposed ordinance to establish a Cook County Affirmative Action Program that was also referred to Rules. The other proposed ordinance amendments were referred to the Finance Committee and deal with certain County user fees and taxes, presumably in conjunction with the proposed 2011 Budget presented to the Board at the earlier Special Meeting that day. I say "presumably" because the agenda notice did not contain any specifics of what is proposed.
All of this took place in an hour!
--Submitted by Pris Mims
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