The meeting began with an hour of various procedural and ceremonial matters including the recognition of Silver Star families, the 10th Anniversary of Growing Home and the recognition of a couple who had gone out of their way to help a crime victim.
Then the board meeting was recessed by President Preckwinkle and The Finance Committee met, chaired by Commissioner Daley. Routine court orders, subrogations and bond issue changes were approved.
Then the commissioners turned their attention to the matter of Contingency Funds which seem to be routinely used both by department heads and other high ranking officials and elected Commissioners to cover spending on travel and other expenses with much less oversight than these expenditures would receive if they were accounted for under individual budget line items. President Preckwinkle had asked Commissioner Tobolski to try to identify a solution that would be acceptable to a majority of Commissioners.
Commissioner Collins made a long statement saying that it was her opinion that any changes made should apply to everyone - the President, Department heads, Chief of Staff and Commissioners. Collins said she suggested an amendment to cover everyone but said Tobolski deferred it. Daley said that Collins had not used the correct process to have her amendment considered.
Silvestri asked why the overall reimbursement process could not be clarified so the same process was used for everything and everybody. He said he, Quigley and Daley introduced new controls some years ago and these changes are a good thing and a continuation of what they had started. Further, he said the Collins amendment is worthy of consideration as the spending of contingency funds by Commissioners is only a fraction of the whole. Daley responded by saying he did not really understand why people think this is a problem at all.
Murphy said the current process works and the new rules suggested by Tobolski and the Collins amendment are both unnecessary. They will simply create extra work. In her opinion the process that exists now is open and transparent.
Tobolski responded by saying that the Ethics department report shows that there are problems. “Office Supplies” has been used to cover all kinds of things from travel to entertainment. The suggested changes mirror normal business practices - you can’t get money in advance and provide details later, sometimes months later. The changes will not fix all the problems but the best that can be done at this point. Many Commissioners have cooperated in developing them.
Fritchey said he agrees with the Tobolski effort but disagrees with how it is being done. He agrees with Collins that the rules should apply to those not elected as well particularly as they do not have to answer to the voters. There should also be rules in place to reimburse the County for personal use of county cars. He had filed an ordinance to do away with contingency funds altogether as they are so subject to misuse but there are not enough votes to pass this. The Tobolski-suggested changes still leave significant loopholes. They add a layer of bureaucracy and allow people to say something is being done but they don’t fix the problem. The Ethics department is busy with other things. He will vote yes but just for “optics” reasons as he doesn’t want it to be said he did not support stronger controls over spending. Each Commissioner has different dollar amounts in Contingency funds and they use them for different things. This makes no sense. The analogy is that the State Board of Elections shouldn’t have to pre-approve each campaign expense as there is already a list of pre-approved types of expenses. So why does the Ethics department have to look at each item? Also there are no mechanisms for dealing with non-compliance in place and no penalties for non-compliance. He questioned Director of Ethics Mary Foster about the personal use of County cars. She said they have no authority over this. They are just being given oversight over spending contingency funds. She said daily review would be better than quarterly review but she supports the amendment. Fritchey said daily review would be unworkable.
Commissioner Garcia expressed support for the Tobolski proposals.
Commissioner Simms said she was offended by the idea that the old ways were bad and the old guard was corrupt. The current discussion about Good Government was just to generate Good Press for the newcomers. When lobbyists joined the board lobbying became alright. People are double dipping on pensions but the reformers won’t touch that because they want to double dip too. The board has to stop just acquiescing to what the press says. If you don’t like contingency money then don’t take them and don’t use them.
Tobolski asked people not to get personal and said the Collins amendment should be looked at once his proposed changes had been put in place. He had confined his review to the Commissioners spending only because that is what President Preckwinkle had asked him to do.
Vote was as follows: 16 yes (Reyes, Tobolski, Garcia, Collins, Fritchey, Suffredin, Butler, Beavers, Murphy, Simms, Daley, Schneider, Goslin, Silvestri, Gorman, Steele) and 1 absent (Gainer).
After the Finance Committee adjourned, the Workers Compensation Committee failed to meet because of a lack of quorum.
Then the Zoning and Building Committee met to handle some routine matters.
President Preckwinkle returned to restart the Board meeting itself and various routine matters were handled including an intergovernmental agreement between the City and County covering Juvenile Justice.
Another intergovernmental agreement generated some discussion and questions but no dissent. This covers the County taking over the provision of services to tuberculosis patients who are currently handled by the City. By combining the responsibility under one body it is believed that patients can receive better services at lower cost. The City will close outpatient TB clinics.
After this various spending contracts were approved. Most interesting of these were one for GIS software to track wetlands information and one with the Gartner Consulting group to look into streamlining County operations.
Various building fee waivers were approved for organizations such as the Chicago Botanic Gardens (County entity) and the Loyola Medical Center in Maywood. It was not clear to me if all not for profits have fees reduced or waived or if this was a special case.
Various items on the consent agenda were referred to the Finance Committee and the Roads and Bridges Committee before the rest of the Consent agenda was approved.
A $9.8 million project with US Equities Realty was approved for them to spend two years developing recommendations for rationalizing all the real estate owned by the County. Suffredin voted “present” on this item.
There was extensive discussion on what initially appeared to be a routine matter to urge the Illinois House to pass Bill 4148 clamping down on the fraudulent use of homestead exemptions. Representatives from the Cook County Assessors Office explained that the bill contemplated a sliding scale of penalties ranging from $0 for claiming one exemption someone is not entitled to to 40% penalty for claiming three incorrect exemptions. Suffredin said it was a very fair bill with lots of safeguards to protect the elderly or those who simply made an innocent mistake. Collins and Simms feel many of their constituents would not be able to cope and would be subject to penalties through simple error on their part. Schneider and Silvestri also felt there were major issues to be clarified.
Butler and Collins voted No on this item, Schneider, Gorman and Goslin voted Present and the rest of the Commissioners voted Yes.
Another item that generated a lot of discussion was an agreement with the Heartland Alliance for them to provide various services that would result in further reducing the numbers of youth in the Juvenile Detention Center. Currently youth who do not have parents to whom they can be released have to be kept in detention while awaiting court action. Heartland will serve in the role of guardians and provide services to the youth. All the Commissioners supported the actions President Preckwinkle and the Chief Judge had initiated in this area. Substance abuse and other treatment and social services will cost less than detention and result in better outcomes.
The board approved a contract to house detainees for a two year period in other counties who charge $50 per day plus medical costs. This is significantly less than the cost to provide these same services within Cook County.
Commissioner Simms reported on redistricting. An additional hearing would be held in the Loop and the deadline to turn in maps would be extended to May 8th. Nothing had happened behind closed doors and every Commissioner has been invited to come to the map room and draw a map although most had not taken her up on the offer. She encouraged Commissioners to talk to the those who represent neighboring districts. Simms pointed out this time a Committee of the Whole is working on the issue instead of having 9 people as was done last time. Daley said he supports the process. Silvestri said the process has been open and they have to figure out the protected districts and have the rest fit around them.
The meeting adjourned at 2:10 pm.
--Submitted by Lali Watt
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