April 20, 2011
The Board Meeting was called to order at 10:10am by President Preckwinkle. After the opening prayer and the pledge the first order of business was a motion to first consider an item from the New Items Agenda. The motion was approved and the item was the announcement of the recipient of the 2011 Cook County Frontline Award, a new initiative to encourage Cook County employees to submit innovative ideas to help achieve fiscal responsibility, and increase transparency and accountability in services. The winner was Andy Polina, an employee in the Facilities Management Dept., with the winning idea that Cook County should implement a database for tracking and purchasing of supplies and materials countywide. His idea was chosen from the 60 that were submitted.
The Finance Meeting was convened at 10:20am by Comm. Daley, Finance Committee Chairman. Comm. Collins continued to vote against all bills submitted pertaining to Shakman Compliance. She is usually joined in her dissent of these bills by Comm. Murphy and Sims but they were not in attendance at this meeting. Comm. Collins also questioned why so many outside attorneys were being paid for indigent clients in Juvenile Cases. She thought the Public Defenders office should be handling these cases so they could keep their Public Defenders employed. Pat Reardon from the Public Defenders Office stated that in many cases the Public Defender cannot defend both the parent and the child in such cases - making it necessary to hire outside lawyers. They are in the process of setting up a Conflict Unit which would establish the "wall" necessary to prevent conflict of interest in such cases. They anticipate that this could bring a savings of $500,000, but they would probably need to hire additional lawyers to be able to handle the increased work within their office. Comm. Daley said there would always be a need for outside lawyers though even if such a system were put in place. Comm. Collins inquired as to how the lawyers were assigned to cases and stated that more women and minority lawyers should be used. A representative from the Chief Judge's Office stated that there is a pool of lawyers and it is up to the judge who gets assigned to a case. Lawyers have to apply to be in the pool and anyone can apply. He also stated that the Chief Judge's Office would provide the commissioners with a written outline of the process for establishing the lawyer pool and how the pool is utilized by the judges.
The Revenue Report for the first quarter of the fiscal year indicated a shortfall of $16.6m as reported by the Comptroller. While the shortfall was not only due to decreased revenue at HHS the questioning was directed to HHS. Mr Ayres, CFO for the HHS, stated that assumptions were made when they did their budget that are not coming to fruition and they now anticipate a $40-50m shortfall by year end. He indicated they struggle with hiring problems and continue to have billing problems. He stated that they have 43 available positions as billing coders but have only been able to offer positions to 3 people since those applying were not qualified. Comm. Silvestri and Gainer asked questions to clarify what the issues in hiring were but there did not seem to be a clear indication of where the problem was. It was unclear as to whether the County hiring process was hampering hiring or if this was an HHS hiring problem. Comm. Tobolski and Schneider indicated that perhaps there would be an opportunity to work with local community colleges or the POET office to establish training programs for these jobs. The Finance Committee was adjourned at 11:40am.
Zoning and Building Committee had one item deferred and the rest all approved. Roads and Bridges agenda was all approved and the Board reconvened at 11:46am.
The only item on the board agenda that provoked much discussion was a resolution introduced by President Preckwinkle to oppose conceal carry laws in Illinois and Cook County. After a few brief speeches a roll call vote was taken. Ayes - 10 - Butler, Collins, Daley, Fritchey, Gainer, Garcia, Reyes, Steele, Suffredin, Tobolski Nays - 4 - Beavers, Gorman, Goslin, Schneider
Absent - 3 - Murphy, Silvestri, Sims. The Resolution was approved.
The remaining items on the agenda were approved or referred to committees with minimal discussion and then the New Items were considered. There were 11 new items to be considered and as usual the New Items Agendas were not available for the public at the meeting. They probably were available prior to the meeting online although items 9-11 were not submitted until April 20. The items were only referred to by number during the meeting and with little discussion it was difficult to know what the items were. Comm. Silvestri did raise a question about whether the new items could be acted on and it was stated that when they vote to suspend the rules to take up 1 item on the New Items Agenda that should be interpreted to mean they are suspending all the rules pertaining to the new items including the 72 hour rule. There was some discussion about whether that was allowed under the Open Meetings Act but the meeting proceeded with the understanding that the stated interpretation was correct.
New Items of note - (observer went online after the meeting to determine what the items were since discussion during the meeting did not reveal the nature of the items being acted on)
- A resolution about the Capital Improvements Program for Fiscal Years 2011-15 was referred to the Capital Improvements Committee.
- A minor change to the Code of Ethical Conduct was approved.
- A proposed Ordinance establishing the Cook County Open Government Plan was referred to the Technology Committee. The purpose of this plan is "to increase transparency and accountability and informed public participation and to create economic development opportunities....by making certain information available online in a machine-readable, open format."
The meeting was adjourned at 12:20pm.
