May 8, 2013 Cook County Board Meeting

Public Comment Returns to All Meetings

Source of Income Amendment Passes

After several years of advocacy on the part of the League of Women Voters of Cook County, the Cook County Board amended its Rules of Organization and Procedure to return a public comment period to all its Board and Committee meetings.  In addition, the Board passed an amendment that eliminates a landlord’s right to refuse to rent to someone solely on the basis that that person participates in the Federal Section 8 housing assistance program.  The Cook County League has also been supporting the passage of this amendment known as the “Source of Income (SOI)” amendment.

In other business, the Board referred a proposed ordinance regulating the carrying of concealed weapons to the Legislation and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee.  Committee Chair and amendment sponsor Larry Suffredin explained that this proposed ordinance would be held in committee to see if the Illinois legislature and governor would enact a concealed weapon statute in conformance with a recent federal court order.  If the State does not act within the time limit specified by the court, then the Committee will take up this item, including holding hearings on this proposed ordinance. (This was New Item #4 on the agenda.)

The Board also approved the appointment of Shelly Banks as Cook County Auditor for a 5-year term. Ms. Banks is a CPA and has most recently served as the Chief Internal Auditor with the Illinois State Lottery.

Public Testimony

Under the Amendment to the Rules that was first discussed in the Legislation and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee on May 8 prior to the Board Meeting, in order to testify at a Board or Committee meeting, a speaker must register with the Secretary to the Board at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting.  Public testimony must be germane to a specific item or items on the agenda, and the testimony must not exceed three minutes.  Anyone failing to adhere to these conditions or failing to act appropriately when addressing the Board may be expelled from the meeting or may be disqualified from testifying in the future.  The Chair of the meeting may grant leave for someone who has not met the advance registration requirement to speak if conditions permit.  As Commissioner Suffredin explained to the League representatives present, one of the purposes of the advance notice requirement is so people have some idea as to how long public comment will take so that any necessary adjustments to the day’s schedule can be made.

As originally proposed, the amendment would have had public testimony come at the end of the meeting.  The League contacted the Commissioners to urge that testimony come prior to the Commissioners taking any action on an agenda item so the Commissioners would have the benefit of such testimony.  Following that contact, the League was informed that a substitute ordinance amendment would be introduced in Committee which provided for public testimony at the start of meetings as the normal order of business.  League Co-President Karin Hribar testified at the Committee meeting in favor of this substituted amendment, which was then passed by the Committee. The Committee Report for this May 8 meeting was then passed by the Board at the Board meeting that day.

SOI Amendment

In a meeting of the Board’s Human Relations Committee on July 24, 2012, the Committee approved a proposed amendment to Chapter 42, Sections 42-37 and 42-38 of the County Code which would eliminate a landlord’s ability to refuse to rent to someone who participated in the Federal Section 8 housing assistance program.  That Committee Report and the items contained therein, however, was not presented to the full Board until this May 8 meeting.  This particular item was pulled out from the report for separate discussion by the Board.  At the beginning of the Board meeting, public testimony was allowed with 9 speakers in favor of the amendment and two speakers opposing it.  Those in support argued that no one should be discriminated on the basis of their source of income and that anyone receiving Section 8 support should be allowed to live anywhere in Cook County.  It was pointed out that the city of Chicago did not allow a renter to be turned away solely because of Section 8 assistance.  Those who spoke in opposition expressed concerns that landlords would have additional paperwork and other requirements.  The League was one of the members of the group supporting this amendment.

The SOI amendment was approved 9 to 6.  Voting yes:  Butler, Fritchey, Gainer, Garcia, Moore, Reyes, Sims, Steele, and Suffredin.  Voting no:  Daley, Gorman, Goslin, Murphy, Schneider, and Silvestri.  Absent:  Collins and Tobolski.  Prior to the vote, President Preckwinkle stated that she would appreciate a vote in favor. 

-- submitted by Priscilla Mims, League Observer

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

Cook County Finance Committee Budget Review, October 27, 2011

Cook County Finance Committee Begins Review of the Proposed 2012 Budget; Concerns Raised over Some Proposed Fees and Taxes; Impact of Recent League Initiatives Seen

Department of Finance; Department of Administrative Hearings; Department of Technology; Offices under the President; and Bureau of Administration

All of the areas and departments appearing this day are under the President.  The Finance Department began by presenting an overview of the proposed Operating Budget of $2.943 billion (down from $3.055 billion in 2011).  There is also a 5-year Capital Improvement Plan for 2012 which proposes $180 million to be spent in 2012, all from funds from bonds issued in 2009 and 10; and $143 million for Capital Projects. 

Proposed Fees and Taxes

During the course of the day, Commissioners expressed concerns about several of the taxes and fees that were proposed by the President in order to balance the budget.  The proposal to have unincorporated areas either be annexed, contract for police services, or pay an additional amount for police services provided by the County Sheriff through a “special service area” tax appears to be among the most controversial.  Andrea Gibson, the Budget Director, explained that her department had worked with the Sheriff to identify that the incremental costs for the Sheriff to provide policing service for the unincorporated areas is $5 million.  Comm. Silvestri noted that areas can opt out of a “special service area” with a 51% vote of the residents.  Some of the questions asked:  Why wouldn’t the residents all vote to opt out?  Would the Sheriff really not provide service there?  The Sheriff is currently providing policing service for Ford Heights which eliminated its police force several years ago because it couldn’t afford to pay for its own.  So how will the County distinguish between Ford Heights and the unincorporated areas?

Expect much more on this topic when the Sheriff appears to discuss his proposed budget.

Several Commissioners, including Collins, Suffredin, and Schneider, expressed concern over the proposed increase in the county’s alcohol tax.  The Finance Department was asked to provide information on the current and proposed total tax on alcohol (including federal, state, and local, as well as county portions) and compare that total to the totals in other major urban areas, as well as adjoining counties.  They don’t want to vote to approve and then find out that the County would then have the highest liquor tax in the U.S., as happened several years ago when they voted to increase the sales tax by a penny.

Comm. Schneider expressed concern over the proposed new auto amusement device tax on machines that require payment to be used by the general public, such as jukeboxes and slot and video poker machines.  Comm. Schneider said that many bars will have 5 or more of these machines, and if the tax on alcohol is also raised, these small businesses will really be hurting.

Comm. Suffredin criticized the President for not mentioning that the budget contains a proposal to align Cook County and the City of Chicago’s parking tiers for charging the county’s parking tax on public garages for daily, weekly and monthly parkers, which results in an increase in the parking tax.  He said this will also affect suburban garages, which won’t necessarily be in alignment, and may hurt suburban downtown shopping districts.

Several Commissioners also wanted to know if there was any consideration given for exempting jurors, state’s attorneys, and public defenders from the proposal to institute parking fees at county parking facilities.  Comm. Gainer asked that information be provides as to whether the proposed fee was set above a threshold that would result in the County having to pay Chicago’s parking tax.

Furlough Days

This controversy was touched upon since also on this day the Interim Comptroller issued a revised and corrected report on who had not been taking these unpaid days off.  Apparently, about half the county’s employees have been deemed “essential” by their departments and thus have not taken any. While it was expected that a number of employees of the Sheriff and the Health & Hospitals System would be exempt from taking all the furlough days since some of their services are offered 24/7, there is concern that other departments are not taking the days.  The Committee will be getting further information by department, and Chairman Daley said that the Finance Committee should ask the departments about the status of furlough days when the departments appear during this budget review.  The Committee may want to amend the departments budgets for 2012 if they can’t justify not having the furlough days taken in 2011.  All employees under the President are taking the furlough days.

Note there is no proposal for furlough days in the 2012 budget.  There is a proposal to have one unpaid county-wide “shut down” day (the day after Thanksgiving in 2012).  In addition, the Administration has offered to cut the number of proposed layoffs (about 1,000) in half (to about 500) if the unions will accept 8 of the existing holidays as being unpaid.  Thus far, the unions have not agreed to this.

League Impact on Special Purpose Funds and Transparency

In September, the League provided the Commissioners its Final Report on its Study of the County’s Special Purpose Funds, along with an updated chart detailing each of the funds.  Representatives of the County League and local Leagues also met with a number of the Commissioners to discuss the concerns as to whether the Commissioners were paying sufficient attention to these funds, including whether they were still needed.  It was clear on this first day of hearings that the League has had an impact.

The Budget Director noted that one special purpose fund for the Homeland Security Department had been eliminated.  Comm. Silvestri questioned several people as to whether the county needed all 36 of the remaining funds.  The one for Animal Control was highlighted because it has a significant fund balance.  The department head explained that she hopes to utilize this fund balance at some point to build a facility to provide a number of services.

With regard to transparency, in the meetings with the Commissioners, the League noted that there appears to be more and more information being provided to Commissioners outside the public meetings.  Chairman Daley stated that, in response to the League’s concerns, for the first time the Commissioners’ questions to departments and the written responses that are provided outside of the budget hearings will be posted on the county’s web site for the public to see.

Technology

During the budget process for fiscal year 2011 (that took place in Feb.), Comm. Fritchey noted that he had offered an amendment that would require all the technology personnel under the different elected officials to work together under the direction of the County’s Technology Chief (currently Greg Wass).  This amendment did not pass because of the opposition from the other elected officials.  Comm. Fritchey stated that he intended to offer this amendment again, and asked whether Mr. Wass still supports such a consolidation.  Mr. Wass said that he supported such a move with regard to infrastructure (i.e., hardware) and enterprise functions (e.g., e-mail).  However, Mr. Wass indicated that applications for particular areas would not be ready for consolidation, noting that the Technology Collaboration Group, which was set up in lieu of the consolidation proposal, and which brings together representatives from different technology personnel throughout the county to share information about what they are doing and planning to do, may be sufficient at this time.

Overall Impression

Despite all the questions and concerns expressed by Commissioners, it was clear that the Commissioners are pleased with a number of the initiatives being taken by the Administration and all of these departments that are under the President in order to improve service, create efficiencies, and increase collaboration among different departments and between the County and City and the County and suburbs in order to reduce costs and improve services. 

-- reported by Priscilla Mims

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Welcome to the Cook County Observer

The LWVCC has had an active Observer Corps for years. This blog will be the new home of the Observer Reports, which in the past have been posted on the LWVCC's website.

What is an Observer Corps? League members who have volunteered their time to attend a governmental meeting, or view a governmental meeting online or on television, and report on what happened at the meeting. The purpose of the reports is to allow the community to know:

• what the government is doing
• the issues facing the government
• how issues are being addressed.

We hope to shed a little more sunshine on Cook County government, and some of its committees and related governments.