Cook County Board Meeting, December 4, 2012

The Meeting was called to order at 10:15 am by President Toni Preckwinkle.  All commissioners except Beavers and Tobolski were in attendance.  A delegation from Russia is in the United States to observe government meetings and was in attendance.  Commissioner Gainer commended these elected officials for several reasons including the fact that they do not collect a salary.

*Special Drivers License for Undocumented Immigrants:  Over the weekend, the League asked its members to call their Illinois legislators to urge support for allowing Illinois to provide temporary visitor driving licenses which would then allow drivers to obtain insurance.  On Thursday, The Cook County Board overwhelmingly passed a resolution in support.   It has the backing of a wide range of supporters including the Insurance and Health Care Industries and the Sheriffs and Police Chief Associations.  The Bill is expected to pass and be signed into law by the Governor.

* Implications of State Pension Reform:  Prior to the meeting, Commissioner Gainer held a Finance Subcommittee on Pension to discuss the possible implications of pension reform legislation that may be discussed by the Illinois General Assembly.  Over the past ten years the Cook County Pension Fund has dropped in its funded status from 88.8% to its 2010 valuation of 60.7%.

    

*The Finance Committee:  The controller gave a hopeful revenue report.  The County’s revenues are up $9.8 million over 2011 including sales tax which is up $8.8 million even with the reduction in the tax rate.  Recovery of patient costs at the Health and Hospitals System continues to be a major drag on the bottom line.

* Cost of Phone Service for Inmates:  The Reverend Jesse Jackson commended President Preckwinkle for working to reduce the very high cost of collect calls for inmates.  He asked for open hearings to learn more about what best practices are recommended.  Currently the cost per minute is over 40 cents.  The Administration has recommended reducing that to 23 cents per minute.  As a comparison, inmates in the Federal prisons pay 7 cents.  The jail holds a large number of women inmates, many with children.  Studies show that the ability to stay in touch lowers recidivism rates upon release.

*Other News of Interest:  The Board gave the Department of Risk Management the authority to resolve Workers Compensation Cases not to exceed $25,000. Commission Simms in particular but also Commissioners Murphy and Collins expressed concern with previously granted approval to give increased procurement authority to the Purchasing Department.  Two resolutions were referred back to committee.  This subject will likely come up again as the two resolutions were for rather routine purchasing authority.  The Cook County Board will meet on a 3 week schedule instead of a two-week schedule beginning "soon."  The number of meetings will be reduced from 24 to 17.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:40 p.m.  Submitted by:  Diane Edmundson

Cook County Board Meeting May 17, 2011

All Commissioners were in attendance except for Robert Steele.

President Preckwinkle introduced a purchasing agent who was beginning the process of the County’s working with the City of Chicago and the Cook County Forest Preserve District to purchase road salt more efficiently. The county is exploring other opportunities to do joint purchasing to save money, including credit card services. There was some discussion of municipalities being invited to co-purchase beet juice and road salt. Com. Silvestri and Com. Fritchey assured the other commissioners that there were already opportunities for municipalities to join purchasing with the state, but that they should be offered a chance to buy via county purchases as well.

A proposed Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise Construction Ordinance was referred to the Contracts Committee to investigate the wording changes.

                       

A resolution was considered to establish sound recordings of all Cook County Workers Compensation complaints within 24 hours of an alleged accident.  It passed with all Commissioners signing on as co-sponsors.

The consent agenda consisted of many financial approvals and appointments. Com. Collins went on record as opposed to deferral of repair of the Maywood Courthouse, stating that conditions are dangerous.  She also opposed further studies of what to do with the old Stroger Hospital, as the county has spent plenty of money already on studies of this kind.

Com. Gainer inquired if all Highway expenditures must pass through the Purchasing Office of Cook County.  The answer is yes.

Greg Wass, Chief Information Officer, received renewed approval for document imaging services within the court system, even though current law requires the Cook County courts to retain paper documents.

Maureen O’Donnell was introduced as the new Director of Human Resources for Cook County.  O’Donnell will be responsible for moving Cook County to substantial compliance with the Shakman Decree, in order to reduce costs for Cook County.  Com. Suffredin pointed out that the new Cook County website was a breath of fresh air in revealing what went on regarding HR appointments at the county.

Michael Masters was introduced as the new head of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for the county.

The last order of business was apparently a typical dispute between a business owner who wanted to develop a business on Cook County land, and did not want to be impinged by the Lemont township building codes, taxes, and requirements of the local municipality. While Lemont did not want to annex the land, they did want to deny the owner’s application for business development. Com. Silvestri suggested that they come back in three weeks after trying to resolve the issues themselves.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 am.

--submitted by Amy Little

Cook County Board Meeting - September 15, 2010

The Board meeting was preceeded by a meeting of the Law Enforcement Committee chaired by Comm. Gainer. Judge Kinnaird from the Chancery Division of the Courts provided an update on the Mortgage Foreclosure Program that was initiated by the Chief Judge several months ago. This update had been requested by the Board. Judge Kinnaird stated that the program was instituted in response to the dramatic increase in foreclosures seen in the courts within the last few years. The program provides certified counselors for mediation when requested in foreclosure cases. Outreach is done for those cases coming into the court and they have received 12,000 calls to their hotline with 3,000 coming in for assistance. 412 cases have resulted in mediation with attorneys being appointed. Calls go to a hotline run by IHDA and persons are referred to a counselor who can see them at the court building or meet with them off site and then they may be referred to an attorney if legal services are in order. Lawyers from Chicago Volunteer Legal Services are used. Judge Kinnaird said that she anticipated they would spend $2.85m by the end of the year for running the program. The Commissioners wanted to know how many people had actually been saved from foreclosure. Judge Kinneard stated statistics would be provided later.


The Cook County Board Meeting follwed and was called to order at 10:18am by President Stroger. All commissioners were present. The first hour of the meeting was spent paying tribute to Congressman Dan Rostenkowski and to Ms. Terrie McDermott who will soon be retiring as Execuitve Director of the Department of Womens Justice Services, an appointed position within the Sheriff's Office.


The Finance Committee was called to order by Comm. Daley at 11:20am. They decided to first consider a Resolution Calling on the General Assembly to Remove the Unnecessary Provision that Require Seniors to Reapply for the Senior Citizens Homeowners Exemption Each Year. Representative John Bradley, the Chairman of the Revenue Committee for the Illinois House of Representatives was introduced to answer questions about the recently passed state legislation that requires all counties with more than 3,000,000 people to require yearly renewal of the Senior Citizens Homeowner's Exemption by mail. In the ensuing interchange between the Commissioners and Rep. Bradley there was discussion of why Cook County had been singled out since it is the only county of that size in Illinois, and why it was problematic that the Cook County Assessor had chosen to change the yearly renewal process, with references being made to home rule powers and unfunded mandates.


Assessor Houlihan was then asked to make a statement. He stated that a discussion prior to the decision would have been more appropriate and that the legislature has no understanding of Cook County's process. Yearly renewal will put an unnecessary burden on the seniors and the cross reference system he has in place no longer requires a yearly mailing for verification. Rep. Bradley felt that he was being unnecessarily attacked and he said the discussion was becoming "political" which resulted in Comm. Daley intervening to keep the conversation focused on the issue at hand in an effort to see what kind of compromise could be worked out. The Assessor then reviewed the 3 year program he began a few years ago where booklets were mailed to everyone explaining all the possible exemptions and requiring a response and then mailed again the following year. Now he matches sales data from the Recorder of Deeds and sends out cards to those addresses to establish if an exemption is still in effect. More discussion followed that established that the state law would have to be changed to change the policy. While it was thought that perhaps compromise was possible a vote was taken on the resolution. The resolution was approved.


Commissioners Sims, Steel, Collins, Murphy, Beavers and Peraica are now voting no on most all payments to the Shakman Compliance Administrators. Their stated reasons are that the county needs to be in compliance and paying the administrators is wasting money that should be spent in other ways.


The Workmen's Compensation bills again brought response from several of the commissioners questioning why compensation should be paid in some of the cases - for example, when people fall off broken chairs. Comm. Steele stated that dealing with these cases needs to be contracted out since the cases are out of control. Lisa Walik from the Dept. of Risk Management stated that state law is very liberal in settling workmens compensation claims and they do work with a contractor who does analysis on claims and works with claimants in getting them back to work.


The Revenue Report for 8 months was presented by the Comptroller. She stated that revenues are short $11m of expected revenue for the time period and that expenditures are about 65% of an expected 67%. October will see the first evidence of the Sales Tax reduction.


Comm. Gorman raised an issue about a bid that was denied to a lowest bidder because the company was from Arizona. She stated that saving the county $25,000 was more important than honoring the ordinance the board passed a few months ago to not do business with companies in Arizona. The Board expressed a desire to award the bid to the lowest bidder but the Purchasing Agent stated that since the contact was now over 90 days old the bid may no longer be valid. Bidders only guarantee their bid amounts for 90 days so they would have to go back to the bidders and see if their stated bids remained the same. A motion was then made to defer this contract. The roll call vote was 16 voting to defer with Comm. Claypool being absent for the vote.




The Finance Committee then adjourned for the Building and Zoning Comm. and the Roads and Bridges committee meetings which were very brief and the Board Meeting finally resumed at 1:10pm for the board agenda. The observer had to leave at this time.