Dept. of Homeland Security & Emergency Management Budget Review

2015 Cook County Budget Department Review: Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management

October 29, 2015

 

On Oct. 29th, the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management met with the Finance Committee to discuss its budget. Commissioners Boykin, Tobolski, Morrison, Arroyo, Suffredin, Steele, and Schneider were present. All but Commissioner Schneider asked questions. All welcomed the new Director, Ernest Brown, who has only been on the job for 2 weeks. All stated that they looked forward to working with him in the future. To answer many of his questions, Mr. Brown deferred to his Chief of Staff and his Finance Director.  The purpose of this department is to respond to both natural and man-made disasters.

 

Three STAR goals were stated for this department in the budget book. They include more training courses for first responders, sharing notifications for federal grants with other county departments, and improving the arrival time for emergency personnel. Commissioner Suffredin was the only one to quote STAR goals in his questions, although Commissioner Steele did refer to including more types of personnel in the training courses. Commissioner Steele asked if funeral directors, religious leaders, and hospital workers could be included with the other first responders (police and fire fighters, for example) because they, too, should be trained in keeping communities calm and cared for in an emergency. Mr. Brown seemed to agree that including the community leaders in training was a good idea. Comm. Steele also asked if Mr. Brown had met with Dr. King, the director of the Illinois Medical District, since she works with bio-tech issues and wants to be part of this department’s work. Mr. Brown agreed to meet with her.

     

Commissioner Suffredin spent a good deal of time asking about specific federal grants, since most of this department’s budget is from such grants. He asked about the STAR goal of sharing grants. The Finance Director said that he would share notification for the application for such grants with other CC Departments such as the jail, forest preserves, and the state’s attorneys’ office. He also asked about the STAR goal of improving deployment times for emergency personnel. The budget showed a target last year of 14 minutes, yet the current goal was 60 minutes. The director said that he wanted the target to be “realistic” and that last year’s target was not.

 

Commissioner Tobolski praised the former Director, Michael Masters, for his work in uniting the 134 communities of Cook County in writing preparedness plans for evacuations and emergency planning. He said that without such plans, emergency aid does not come through from the federal government. He asked if we were currently prepared enough for such emergencies.  Mr. Brown assured him that we were and said he appreciated the need for all communities to work together on this.

 

A good deal of time was spent discussing what this department CANNOT do. Grant money from the federal government comes with some very specific stipulations, said the director. So when Commissioner Boykin asked if some money could be spent combating “narco-terrorism” (pipeline of hard drugs coming right into Chicago), the director said that he shares the concern over this problem, but his department cannot use grant money for it. The director did note that he works with the Sheriff’s department on communications and technical projects. Commissioner Suffredin also asked if some money could be used to combat the recent heroin epidemic (especially the overdosing on “bad” heroin). Again the director said that grant money could not be used for this purpose.

 

There was some discussion of the high salaries of some of the employees in this department, especially those who were paid with grant money. The director said that some personnel are highly technical computer experts who are trained to combat cyberterrorism, a real threat. He said that he was competing with the private sector for some of these experts.

 

Director Brown thanked the committee for the opportunity to explain his department’s budget and promised to be much more prepared next year, when he had more than 2 weeks on the job.

Submitted by Jan Goldberg

Proposed 2015 Cook County Executive Budget: October 20, 2014 Department Meetings

Board of Review:  The Board is headed by 3 Commissioners elected by district.  The Board rules on appeals by property owners of assessments from the County Assessor.  The Board touted that it completed its work by the necessary deadline so that 2^nd installment property tax bills could go out on time for the 3^rd year in a row, after many years of being late.  In response to questions from Commissioner Gainer, the Board stated that the rate of appeals that got reductions from the Board was running between 60 and 72%.  Commissioner Gainer asked that the Board provide information by commercial vs. residential on the total number of appeals, the number that were successful, the amount of the reduction in the assessed value.  Commissioner Gainer expressed concern that those not sophisticated enough to appeal are paying higher taxes as a result of all the successful appeals.  Commissioner Daley wanted to know the rate of successful appeals by township.

Assessor:  The proposed budget reduces employee county by 23, but  only a slight reduction in the budget.  The Assessor explained that a number of those positions had only been budgeted for $1 in last year’s budget, so eliminating these positions did not result in a large $ reduction.  The Assessor touted the Fraud Unit which has gone after those trying to take senior or homeowners’ exemptions that they are not entitled to.  So far $5.1 million have been collected and $4.1 million are in the process of being collected by this Unit.

Treasurer:  The Treasurer touted the fact that taxpayers now have 9 payment methods for their property taxes vs. only 2 when she took office in 1998.  The headcount is down 65% since 1998 and the Treasurer’s goal is to get down to 60 people.  Commissioner Gainer raised concerns about the new state law which moves the tax sales earlier and the expected resulting increase in the “sales in error” which could cost the County as much as $30 to $50 million.  Purchasers of properties under the tax sales do have to pay a fee that goes into a fund in the event the property should not have been sold for nonpayment of taxes, but this fund currently is quickly depleted and the County has to pay any remaining costs associated with the sale in error, which includes interest on the payments made by the purchasers.  It was implied that the date of the tax sales was moved up as a result of the strong lobbies of the purchasers in Springfield.

Recorder of Deeds:  The proposed budget for 2015 is down by $680 thousand and 9 FTEs.  A work flow analysis had been done and the Recorder expects to further streamline the processes within the department.  Commissioner Gainer asked how long it will take to digitalize all the files, and the Recorder answered about 10 years.  Commissioner Gainer wondered whether the Recorder needed a special purpose automation fund, like the Treasurer has, but the Budget Director explained that the special purpose GIS fund can be used for this.

Department of Human Rights & Ethics:  The Director reported on the improvements in this department, which was tainted by scandal under the prior Administration, since she took over almost 4 years ago.  There has been a 72% reduction in the backlog of cases in 2014, and the goal is that by the end of 2015, there will be no cases older than one year.  Commissioner Gainer asked about coordination with equivalent offices at the State and Federal levels.  The Director said that the County cross-references to see whether the same case is at the State and/or Federal level and the government offices divide up any duplicates.  The Director stated that there are federal dollars available for handling cases if this department is found to be equivalent to the Federal department.  This is in the process of being reviewed.

Department of Human Resources:  There are 2 remaining issues left to be found in compliance with the Shakman Decree and the Director of HR stated that the County was close to finalizing these.  One new initiative for 2015 is an executive development program.  The Director stated that it is hoped that the major unions’ contracts for 2012-2016 will be resolved by the end of 2014.  Commissioner Suffredin expressed concern whether there was sufficient money in this budget to take care of any resulting increases.  The Budget Director stated that the budget does reflect the expected outcome of contract negotiations.  Commissioner Gainer asked about the provision in the Budget Resolution which allows the Chief Judge to transfer money among the different funds under the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) without having to go back to the Board in the event the JTDC is moved under the Chief Judge’s control from the Federal Court’s. Commissioner Suffredin explained that this is similar to what was done 2 years ago to allow the newly elected Recorder of Deeds to revise the budget submitted by her predecessor. Commissioner Suffredin stressed that in both cases, the total budget could not be increased, just a movement of dollars among funds. Further, any new contracts to employ outside services would have to come before the Board. 

Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management:  Commissioner Gainer asked about the plan for dealing with cyber-security. The Director said that that area is moving from the Bureau of Technology to his Department, and a new team is being built. His Department will be responsible for all systems under the President and for the court system and HHS. However, any systems that are entirely for a particular elected officer will be the responsibility of that elected official. But the Department could propose standards that the Board could enact that would apply to all areas in the County.

Office of the President and Justice Advisor Council (JAC):  The current lower level of the jail population as compared to last year tracks with the increase in the number of judicial orders for electronic monitoring which began at the same time as the President wrote seeking assistance from the Illinois Supreme Court in September of 2013.  Commissioner Sims mentioned that she and Commissioner Fritchey have had problems with the awarding of grants by the JAC.  The JAC is intentionally giving smaller grants to help smaller organizations that may not have the capacity to obtain larger grants, but it was suggested that the RFP (request for proposal) should indicate that.  Commissioner Suffredin asked what was being done to give judges more information so good decisions can be made concerning bail and alternatives to incarceration prior to trial.  The Budget Director pointed to the proposed budget for the Chief Judge which adds 27 positions for electronic monitoring and for the new “2^nd look” program.  In addition, more there is more money for the “no place to stay” program under the Sheriff’s budget for those who otherwise could not go on electronic monitoring because they have no place to stay.

Commissioner Gainer asked about the status of the President’s motion to the Federal Court to take over the Sheriff’s authority to release those in jail due to overcrowding.  The motion is still pending.

Clerk:  The Clerk touted that the special purpose Election budget for 2015 is less than it was 4 years ago, the equivalent year in the election cycle. Voter registration in suburban Cook is up by 30,000 and it looks like more people will be voting by mail based on the increase in applications received thus far.  Commissioner Suffredin asked about online voter registration, that is a new program this year.  Statewide, there were 31,000 online registrations and 3,200 in suburban Cook.  Commissioner Sims asked whether there would be more touch screens, which she is a fan of.  The Clerk is not purchasing more, but is looking for the next step in technology.  E-poll books will be in every suburban precinct, with the paper back-up.  The advantage to the E-poll books of voter registrants is that they have up-to-date information and allow for immediate corrections since it is connected to the online database. 

Chicago Board of Elections:  The head of the Board said that there have been no major advances in voting technology yet to replace the touch screens, but that this Board would work with the Clerk to leverage their purchasing power when the time was right.  The  budget is down quite a bit for 2015 because the City of Chicago covers most of the Board’s activities for this year when the only elections in the city will be for city offices. 

-- submitted by Priscilla Mims