Cook County Board Meeting April 17, 2013

Prior to the Cook County Board meeting, three standing committee meetings were held.  The Finance Committee was first, longest and mainly routine matters were approved.  While approving bills to be paid, there was once again an extensive discussion of the Shakman decree, how to get rid of the complaint, its history, its cost.  The Zoning and Building and Roads and Bridges Committees also met briefly.

At 11:10 a.m., the Cook County Board meeting was called to order by President Toni Preckwinkle.  The outstanding event of the entire meeting was the Invocation presented by poet laureate Aja Monet, who is a young woman who has been widely recognized for her outstanding, meaningful poetry and work with young people.  Her invocation ended with the statement “ Recognize Crime as a Disease”. She received a standing ovation for her outstanding work – this one written the night before she presented it.

A great deal of time was spent honoring Commissioner Peter Silvestri who is retiring as Mayor of Elmwood Park after serving for 24 years.  A Girls Scout troop from the north side of Chicago was recognized, as was April 22 Earth Day sponsors and activists. 

The three Intermediate Service Centers (regional resource centers of the Illinois State Board of Education) were presented and briefly described their role.  They informed the board that they serve about 400,000 students and that they have no funding to address the very serious issue of truancy in the schools. They indicated there are 12,000 chronic truants in the suburban schools.  The Board suggested working with the Justice Advisory Council to help find funding in the private sector to help deal with the problem of truancy.

Michael Master, Homeland Security Director for Cook County, briefly discussed the activities of his office and municipalities and first responders in relationship to the Boston Marathon bombing.   

The remainder of the meeting was routine.  This observer had to leave at 1:40 pm, although there were still a few more items on the Board's agenda.  Having read in the newspaper the morning of the meeting about the compromise between Commissioner Gorman and President Preckwinkle on the county car transfer tax that has been in effect for a year and applies to person-to-person car sales, the observer had hoped to hear a discussion on the subject.  None was forthcoming by the time of my departure.

--submitted by Syvia Tillman

CC Board Finance Committee, Budget Review of Cook County Board of Commissioners, Nov. 3, 2009

Each Commissioner’s budget and that of the Board Secretary were included in this review.  There was discussion that the Board Secretary’s budget should be reduced by at least 5% from 2009.  Commissioner Silvestri said that he thinks it is wrong that he and 6 other Commissioners have reduced their budgets by 5% from 2009 in accordance with the President’s request, while 6 others have proposed increases and 4 have stayed the same.  Further he noted that he and only some of the other Commissioners reduced their budgets by 4% last year in compliance with an across the board reduction.  While in the ensuing discussion, no individual names were used, the proposed budget reflects that Commissioners Collins, Sims, Murphy, and Reyes have sought increases (ranging from $24,000 to $50,000); Commissioners Steele, Beavers, Moreno, Suffredin, Peraica, and Gorman  have essentially held their budgets the same or with negligible increases (less than $5,000); and Commissioners Butler, Silvestri, Gainer, Daley, Claypool (who is not running for re-election), Goslin, and Schneider have all reduced their budgets (ranging from $17,500 to $28,000).

Commissioner Schneider, who is in his first term, said he recognized that the Commissioners will not have the same budgets because longer-serving Commissioners will have longer-serving staff who, in accordance with county practices, will have higher salaries.

--Submitted by Observer Pris Mims

CC Finance Committee Meeting on Proposed 2010 Budget: October 27, 2009, Bureau of Administration

This Bureau is an amalgamation of County departments under the President that literally run the gamut from A (Animal Control) to Z (Zoning Board of Appeals). Other departments are Planning and Development, Building and Zoning, Environmental Control, Judicial Advisory Council, Medical Examiner, Office of Adoption and Child Custody Advocacy, Veterans' Assistance Commission, Highway, Highway – MFT Illinois First, and the Law Library. Mark Kilgallon heads up the Bureau as the Chief Administrative Officer.

The 2009 Appropriation was $36 million (corporate funds) plus $22 million (special purpose funds). The amount included in the proposed budget from President Stroger is $35.6 million (corporate) plus $23.7 million (special). This is a 1.3% reduction in corporate funds per the Budget Director. However, each division was asked to reduce their corporate funds budget request by 5%. The number of FTE's (Full Time Equivalent employees) is currently authorized at 649 and the proposed budget has 697. The increases are due primarily to Highway -- MFT Illinois First (26), the Law Library (7) and the Medical Examiner (18). Among other things, the Medical Examiner needs to add another team to review infant deaths because there are so many. Dr. Nancy Jones, Cook County Medical Examiner, explained the primary purpose of the Medical Examiner's office is to prevent preventable deaths by identifying the cause of death so that action can be taken to prevent future deaths.

Commissioner Gainer asked whether any of the special purpose motor fuel tax (MFT) funds could be used for other items in the budget. To be explored. Commissioner Gainer also would like each department's budget in the future to reflect the costs for the facilities they utilize; otherwise, departments have no incentive to consolidate or move to less expensive space.

Commissioner Silvestri asked about where the project to add cameras at County –controlled intersections stood. The response was that they were still waiting for the Chief Judge to determine which County court would deal with tickets generated by the use of the cameras. This will probably come up when the Chief Judge appears to discuss that budget. While the installation of cameras is primarily being done for safety reasons, it will also be a revenue generator for the County.

--Submitted by Observer Pris Mims

Lowering Capital Fund Expenses & Complying with Court Orders

Cook County Board of Commissioners Meeting

April 1, 2009

Three main topics of this meeting were inspecting the Capital Fund budget, complying with court orders (Duran Decree and Shakman Decree) against Cook County government, and the contact bid process.

Early in the meeting, Comm. Peraica forcefully noted that the county is still spending millions of dollars because of court case pay outs due to patronage in the system.  He also stated that the Duran (court) decree needs to be addressed by the board.  This entails spending about $8.4 million for Cook County jail software (keeping track of the inmates and their court appearances--the current system failed recently for 18 hours) and about $5 million for the  replacement of two outdated buildings (which will take until 2011 to complete).  After consultation with Comptroller Morales, it was decided to use money in the operating budget to begin these expenditures immediately.  The $8 million amount would be added to the Capital Fund budget.

Comm. Sims proposed that to comply with the Shakman (court-ordered) Decree each department head evaluate the job descriptions, titles, and placement of people in these jobs under their direction.  After discussion with newly hired Human Resources director Joe Sova, it was decided this could and should be done within each department for no extra cost.  The HR department could help with this but does not have the man-power to do the whole job.

There was a heated discussion among commissioners about the bidding process for contracts in Cook County.  One contract for interpreters in the court system has been rebid four times since early fall.  Comm. Silvestri complained that the bid process is too cumbersome and confusing to vendors and that good vendors may stop doing business with Cook County because of this.  The bid process has caused controversy at many board meetings I have attended since September.

Commissioner Schneider proposed that the board go over each line item in the Capital Fund budget to see where cuts could be made, ostensibly to lower the bond amount.

Comm. Beavers stated that there was no need to go over this budget again.  He indicated it was a tactic to delay choosing a bond team, stating that if the bond team were white instead of African-American, this would have been done already.  I left the meeting after that, but according to the next day's newspaper, enough items in the capital fund budget were deleted to bring the total down  over $20 million from about $262 million.  Further cuts were to be looked at during the continuation of this meeting on Thursday.