Cook County Board Meeting on June 19, 2012

Board Approves New HHS Board Members and Redistricting Map

New HHS Board Members

By voting to accept the report of the Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee meeting held earlier that morning, the Board approved Rev. Calvin S. Morris, Carmen Velasquez, and Dorene P. Wiese to new 3-year terms through June 30, 2015 to the Health & Hospitals Board.  Also approved was Edward L. Michael to complete the one-year remaining on term of a Board Member who resigned.  These appointments add to the diversity of the Board as the new members are an African American man, an Hispanic woman, a Native American woman, and a Caucasian man.

Separately, as part of the Revenue Report presented by the Comptroller to the Finance Committee, the CEO of the HHS, Dr. Raju, said that the current projection is for the HHS to be down $60 million from budgeted revenues for the fiscal year, though revenues, as compared to last year at this time, are up by 11%.  But he expects further strains on the system with people no longer being eligible for Medicaid under new Illinois legislation.

New Commissioner Districts for the 2014 Election

By accepting the report of the 2010 Redistricting Committee (see the Cook County Observer Blog report from the June 15 meeting), the Board adopted an ordinance creating new districts for the 17 Commissioners effective with the 2014 election. 

Proposed Amendment regarding Source of Income (SOI)

Item 10 on the New Items agenda is a proposed amendment to the County’s Fair Housing ordinance which would eliminate wording that allows a landlord to refuse to rent to people who want to use Federal Section 8 assistance as their source of income (SOI).  Commissioner Garcia, one of the sponsors, moved that the proposed amendment be sent to the Human Relations Committee, which was approved.  The League of Women Voters of Cook County is supporting this amendment.

Proposal for County Cemetery for Burying Unclaimed Deceased

Probably the most time during the Finance Committee portion of the meeting was spent on a resolution sponsored by Commissioner Fritchey to study creating a County cemetery to bury those in the County morgue who have not been claimed for burial elsewhere.  Commissioner Fritchey obviously felt that he had been given misleading or incorrect information by members of the Administration, and he took quite a bit of time to question Robin Kelly, the Chief Administrator of the County.  Commissioner Fritchey favored situating the proposed cemetery on part of the Oak Forest Hospital campus that is up for sale by the County, and which portion of the land is adjacent to an old cemetery.  However, it was clear from the statements of the other Commissioners that Commissioner Fritchey had no support for this resolution, and he withdrew it.

New Items

Several new items, not available to review prior to the meeting on the County’s web sites, were referred to Committees, including (New Item 15) a proposed change in the Procurement Ordinance to provide flexibility with the goal of having more Minority, Women-owned, and small businesses obtain contracts from the County; (New Item 16) a proposal to establish a Land  Bank Advisory Committee to advise on creation of a Cook County Land  Bank to help redevelop vacant and tax-delinquent properties; and (New Item 20) proposed appointments to the Medical Examiner’s Advisory Committee.

To watch the video of this meeting and/or to view the agenda items for this meeting and the committee meetings held before and during this Board Meeting, go to http://blog.cookcountyil.gov/secretarytotheboard.

-- submitted by Priscilla Mims

2010 Redistricting Committee Meeting on June 15, 2012

Redistricting Committee Approves New Map

The 2010 Redistricting Committee, composed of all 17 Commissioners, approved the proposed map submitted by the appointed Staff, as amended by technical amendments also proposed by the Staff, at the June 15 meeting.  The vote was 14 yea – 1 no (Commissioner Collins) – 2 absent (Commissioners Beavers and Schneider).  The next step is for the Board to approve the recommended map at the next Board Meeting on June 19. 

While the proposed ordinance containing the map by reference will be effective immediately, Commissioners will continue to serve their currently drawn districts.  Further, should there be any Board vacancies before the 2014 election, the person appointed will come from the current districts.  For those running in the 2014 primary and November election for a Board position, they will be running to serve the new districts as drawn by this new map. This new map will only be used for the 2014 and 2018 elections.  A new map will be needed for the 2022 election, and will be based on the 2020 census.

The map approved by the Committee has 5 districts with African-American majorities, 3 districts with Hispanic majorities, and 9 districts with Non-Hispanic White majorities.  This represents 1 additional Hispanic majority district and one less Non-Hispanic White majority district, while retaining 5 districts with African-American majorities.  There is up to almost a 10% disparity in the size of the districts, meaning that there are differences in population among the districts of up to about 30,000 people.  This is within the tolerances that Courts have approved according to the consultants to the Committee.  Essentially, the new map started with the existing districts and added and subtracted territory as necessary to comport with the 2010 census, keeping in mind the Voting Rights Act.  Maintaining people in their current district to the extent possible was one of the goals stated by the Committee’s consultant.  But as a result, most of the newly-drawn districts can hardly be said to be “compact.”

Prior to voting on the new map, the Commissioners considered and rejected a proposed amendment submitted by Commissioner Earlean Collins that would have substituted a different map.  The “Collins Protected Class Map 6/12/12” would have increased the majorities in the African-American and Hispanic majority districts, as compared to the approved map.  Further, the districts under this map would have been almost equal in population (less than a 1% deviation).  This proposed map on its face appeared to have more compact districts.  The information provided was not sufficient, however, to determine whether towns and wards or other communities of interest would have been divided more often than under the approved map.    The proposed amendment was defeated with only Commissioner Suffredin joining Commissioner Collins in voting to approve it, and with Commissioner Fritchey voting “present.”

-- submitted by Priscilla Mims

Health and Hospitals System Board Meeting May 29, 2012

The meeting was called to order at 7:40am by Chairman Batts when an adequate number of members arrived for a quorum and lasted only slightly over an hour before going into closed session to consider Human Resources concerns. The one action item of note was a change to their Rules of Organization and Procedure that will make it easier for the committees of the board to have a quorum present. The change will allow the committee chairperson to designate an elected director who is present at a committee meeting but not actually a member of that committee to serve as a substitute member of the committee for that meeting only in order to attain a quorum. This change was approved.

Dr. Bruce Siegel from the National Association of PublicHospitals and Health Systems (NAPH) was a guest speaker at the meeting. His association is based in Washington DC, has about 140 public health system members, and advocates for safety-net hospitals. He presented the following statistics to the board.

In the 10 largest cities in the US, Public Hospital Systems provide:

            1/3 of Outpatient Visits

            1/4 of Emergency Room Visits

            40% of trauma care

            63% of burn care

            1/5 of all uncompensated care

            1/4 of training of US physicians

He also provided the following comparative information on the payer mix for all US hospitals, all public hospital systems and CCHHS specifically. Mr Batts stated that while he knew that the payer mix was always reported to be unbalanced at CCHHS he had never seen statistics that showed it so starkly.

Payer	All Hospitals	Public Hospitals	Cook County HHS
Commercial	37%	19%	8%
Medicare	39%	24%	11%
Medicaide	16%	36%	32%
Uninsured	6%	18%	49%
Other	2%	3%	--

With 49% of patients at CCHHS being uninsured, the system will continue to have challenges going forward.  Under the Affordable Care Act the Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) subsidy for those hospitals that have been providing a disproportionate share of “charity care” is due to be ratcheted down.  The Board continues to await the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act as the decision will impact future planning.

Don Howard, the HHS Chief Information Officer, gave a transition report on the status of the IT systems as he is leaving after serving for 10 years. He stated that the transformation of the system has been ongoing and will continue and there is a good team in place to carry on the plans that have been developed. Upgrades to Provident and Oak Forest will need to be developed in accordance with future plans for those sites.

Mr. Carvalho asked Dr Raju about state legislation that has been approved that will have an impact on the system. Dr. Raju stated that the state's Medicaide waiver, changes to the definition of charity care, and the cuts in Medicaide will need further analysis.  These issues will be more fully discussed at the next CCHHS Finance Committee meeting. At 8:45am the board went into closed session.

Cynthia Schilsky

LWVCC Observer

Cook County Board Meeting Tuesday June 5, 2012

The meeting was called to order at 10:05 a.m.

The meeting began with a proposed resolution sponsored by the Board thanking law enforcement officers and first responders for their service and professionalism during the 2012 NATO Summit. The resolution passed and Superintendent Garry McCarthy was present to accept the presentation and stressed the positive way in the way the eight days before and during the summit “went down.” 

An amendment was passed clarifying the role of the Judicial Advisory Council, which will now be called the Cook County Justice Advisory Council. Comm. Reyes was pleased to honor the National Latina Education Institute on their 40^th anniversary.

The office of the Chief Judge with the Juvenile Probation and Court Service Department has entered into a contract with the organization Kaleidoscope to aid in the monitoring of juveniles through electronic monitoring. Comm. Colllins questioned the legality of working with this program as it is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization and she wants the Board of Cook County to continue to be responsible for this program. The contract passed.

President Preckwinkle made an announcement during the waiver portion of the agenda that the waiver policy will be undergoing a re-evaluation.

The meeting adjourned at 1:15 p.m.

--submitted by Carol Ginsburg, observer  

Forest Preserve District of Cook County June 6 2012

President Preckwinkle called the meeting to order at 10:10 AM.  Roll was called and an invocation was made.

Absent:  Butler, Steel(other commissioners come in after the meeting started) Meeting was suspended for the Finance Committee Meeting

Commissioner Goslin, Finance Committee Chair, called the following for approval:

Disbursements, litigation reports, workman’s compensation subcommittee report, bids for tree removal (some discussion on ability to treat trees with Emerald Ash borer before removal), and revenue report that was received and filed.  There was a roll call vote for approval of the bond issue amendment and the four different bond issuances. General obligation bonds of $11 million, $54 million, $55 million and $70 million. The public hearing period for these bonds has ended and all were passed in the roll call vote. Finance committee meeting was adjourned and Forest Preserved meeting was reconvened.

President Preckwinkle started the agenda and everything moved very quickly.  Item 1 to referred to the Finance Committee.  The following committee reports were approved:  Real Estate, Legislative and Intergovernental Affairs, Rules and Administration, and the Finance committee report of today’s meeting.

The following were approved unanimously:

Item 3 GFOA(Government Finance Officers Association) Certificate of Achievement filed for 2010

Item 4 Bid for IT services (Increase of $120,000 of existing contract)

Item 5 Truck purchase ($400,000)

Item 6 Increase in contract in website development ($20,000)

Item 7 Intergovernmental Contract with Cook County for Print Services, Risk Management and Intergovernmental Relations (question on how to make sure FP is paying fair amount, legislation lobbying) ($240,000 per year)

Item 8 Intergovernmental Agreement with Cook Co. for Sheriff Department for 911 service ($250,000 per year)

Item 9 Proposed intergovernmental agreement with US Army Corp of Engineers to assess condition of dams, water control structures, etc. ($250,000 per year with matching funds from ACOE)

Item 10 Audit Report for Fiscal Year 2011

Item 11 Receive and File Science and Research Symposium Report

Item 12 Amend Previously approved item for paving (no change in fiscal impact but what account it will come out of)

Item 13 List of upcoming Calendar Events

Finance Litigation and Worker’s Compensation Subcommittees were called to order at 11:00 AM.

Forest Preserve meeting was adjourned at 11:05 PM.

Finance Litigation subcommittee convened, approved invoices and then adjourned (3 members in attendance). Litigation Subcommittee (Tobolski, Collins, Gainer) then approved some invoices and went into Executive Session at 11:10 AM.

Respectfully Submitted
Peggy Kell