Greg Wass, the newly appointed Chief of Technology, provided a handout to the Commissioners and reviewed his vision for changes needed to streamline the organizational structure of technology within the county. At the present time 20% of IT spending is within the Bureau. He stated that while there may be enough money allocated for IT it is not well managed since central oversight for spending or coordination of IT services is lacking. Purchase of the county's main frame computer from IBM (for $400,000) was listed as one of his initiatives with the long term goal of getting off the main frame. He would like 2011 to be focused on the planning phase for IT across the county with execution of their plan following in 2012 and beyond.
Commissioners raised concerns about the amount of money that they have approved for technology over the years. Contractual issues of changing vendors were raised. A big concern was expressed by several commissioners about cell phone use - who gets cell phones paid for by the county and who pays the bills for those phones. Department Heads make the determination of who gets phones and who pays for them but there does not seem to be a consistent policy. Some phones are paid for from a central account but Comm. Gainer questioned why cell phone bills were not allocated to the departments. Sharing of IT systems and having separate IT systems in different departments that don't communicate were also raised as issues as they are every year. Comm. Daley stated that they may need an ordinance that would require the elected officials to participate in whatever system changes are made. He further stated that savings can only come from the cooperation among all elected officials and departments.
Public Administrator - Feb. 3 Hearing
Nicholas Crapsas serves as the Public Administrator for Cook County. He is appointed by the state to provide services to those persons who die in Illinois without a will or have no one to administer their estate. His $56,000 part time salary is paid by the state and his office has a budget request for $1.172m. Revenue generated by this office was $4.2m this past year. This hearing was brief with few questions asked. Comm. Gainer did ask how the law firms were chosen with which the office contracts for services and Mr. Crapsas stated that a request for qualifications had been issued and the office selects from those firms that have met the qualifications.
Auditor - Feb. 3 Hearing
Laura Burman is the head of the Internal Audit Dept. of Cook County. She stated she has complied with the requested budget cuts but instead of doing lay offs she will use furlough days (19 for each FTE) in her department. She stated that future audits will focus on revenue generating departments and they are doing a more risk based approach in their audits. Comm. Gainer stated that making cuts in this department could reduce their ability to catch problems. This also was a brief hearing with few questions asked.
States Attorney - Feb. 8 Hearing
Anita Alvarez came into the hearing after holding a press conference in the hall outside the President's office. In her prepared statements she discussed what a difficult year 2010 had been for law enforcement citing the challenges presented by increased gun violence. She stated that she had negotiated with President Preckwinkle about the cuts to her budget and if she made the requested 10% cuts she would have to cut 58 states attorney positions and 100 support staff and such cuts would greatly impact the services her office would be able to provide.
In discussion with the commissioners it was revealed that the President had requested the 16% cut and the States Attorney had submitted a budget with a 5.5% cut. Further discussion between the President and SA had resulted in a compromise cut of about 10% but there still seemed to be some unresolved issues. Comm. Suffredin asked about whether she was able to use any Special Purpose Funds that were collected by the courts and she said that those belonged to the Chief Judge and her office did not share in any of those funds. She stated that she needs to be fully staffed on the criminal side which is not where her office can generate income. Thus if cuts are made to her civil case staffing her ability to generate increased revenue will be compromised. Comm. Beavers asked his usual question about minority representation on the staff in her office. Ms. Alvarez was prepared for the question and provided the following statistics: her professional staff is 9.62% African American, 7.24% Hispanic, and 4% Asian with 43% of the staff being women. Observer left before the hearing was over.
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