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

May 2 2011 Meeting of the Forest Preserve Commission

Short and snappy 50 minute meeting was held with four commissioners absent.

A miscellaneous item of business will be adding work for the commissioners. It was announced a log ("Political Contact Log") must be maintained by all employees of the District. They are required to document all contacts made by, or on behalf of, politically-related persons or organizations regarding an employment action, involving a non-exempt employee or non-exempt job applicant (i.e., subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act . This will help with their compliance with the Shakman Decree.

Alice Brandon and Benjamin Cox of Friends of the Forest Preserves and John McCabe, the Forest Preserve District's Training and Safety Coordinator, were acknowledged for completing a Safety Training session.

This meeting was immediately followed by a meeting of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

Mary Ann Tate
May 14, 2011

Cook County Health and Hospitals System

Board Meeting April 29, 2011

The meeting was called to order at 7:40am by Chairman Warren Batts. There were 2 public speakers.

• Mr. Blakemore stated his desire that HHS Contract Compliance be independent from the downtown office since HHS is an independent board they should keep this function separate from the county.
• A representative of AFSCME 31 made an appeal to the board concerning suspension of the WIC program. He stated that the program serves 23,000 women and children and is compliant with the strategic plan and wanted to know why the county program was being suspended and turned over to other non-profit agencies.

The Human Resources Committee reported that significant challenges continue with staff recruitment in part due to the "displacement" issue of union employees. It is still unclear how many positions are available to be filled. Further concerns from the HR committee meeting were to be discussed in closed session.

Mr. Carvalho reported for the Finance Committee. Physician billing continues to be problematic. Coding is an important component of the billing process and the problems seem to be more an issue of incomplete coding information than inaccurate coding. It has now been determined that HHS should plan to outsource the coding function and will issue an RFP within the next 5 months. After 18 months of attempting to handle the coding function internally they have been unable to make the process functional. Management is working with the union on this issue and they are required to notify the bargaining unit 5 months in advance of taking action to outsource.

During his report Mr Carvalho addressed the concerns of the 2 public speakers. He stated that HHS has brought the purchasing function in house and had intended to bring Contract Compliance in house as well but with the change in administration and leadership at the county they now feel that perhaps it is not necessary to create an HHS office of Contract Compliance. He said that they have had discussions with Ms. Hall, the Director of Contract Compliance, and she stated that political considerations play no role in the choice of minority and women contractors for the county.

As to the WIC Program Mr. Carvalho stated that he spoke with Dr. Martin, Director of CC Dept. of Public Health, concerning this program. He explained that the WIC program is actually a state program for which the CC Dept. of Public Health was a vendor. IDHS regularly seeks vendors and CC has historically been a vendor. The amount of money the county has received in the last several years has not covered the cost of the program and Dr. Martin has determined that it is no longer cost effective for the county to run a WIC program. Since it was not clear to the Board whether the discontinuation of this program needed board approval the issue was deferred to the next board meeting.

Dr. Carvalho reported that since the amount spent in overtime has been of concern to the CC Board the committee has been investigating the causes and ways to reduce overtime. He introduced Dr. Tedeschi and representatives from the Nursing Dept. to discuss their report on the OT issues. (They had a power point which the observer was not able to see since I was in the adjacent room listening to the meeting but the report is accessible online with the HHS Board information.) It was reported that OT is being used to cover staffing shortages due to displacement (necessity to relocate union employees before hiring from the outside) and LOAs (emloyees on Leave of Absence). HR can recruit but not hire during the displacement process and while the end date for displacement has been changed many times it was stated that the process should be completed by May 20 as long as there are no additional displacements and then nurses can be hired. Stroger is the most understaffed. As of April 1 there were 1200 vacant positions in HHS with 500 being at Stroger. CNA's are now being hired and previously there were few CNA positions. It was reported that in nursing alone there were 237 employees on LOA. Management of LOA and FMLA have been significant problems since they do not have the resources to mange it well and are looking to outsource this function. Another issue is that HHS has very few part- time positions which relates largely to benefits since the county does not have a good pro-rated benefits system for part-time employees. Hiring challenges were summarized as branding of CC (perception of instability), compensation (inability to compete in salaries), and hiring process technology issues.

An Action Plan for dealing with OT was outlined that included:

1. Completing the displacement process and filling 150 vacant positions in the next 3 months
2. Developing a system to manage the OT better with an electronic system
3. Partnering with the county to manage LOA and FMLA
4. Implementing a system wide nursing float pool
5. Bringing OT spending within budget by July 2011.

Michael Ayres, HHS CFO, stated that at the last County Board Meeting the Revenue Report indicated that HHS was still under their revenue estimate for the year. He indicated that he has since done a critical look at their budget and he is predicting a shortfall of $30-4om for the year. This is due to outstanding medicaide money, a physician billing system that is still not up and running and medicare billing concerns. He further stated that if they are unable to move ahead with the Strategic Plan (conversion of Oak Forest Hospital to an outpatient facility) they may also have to adjust the expense side of the budget as well before the end of the year.

A resolution was approved recognizing William Foley for his 2 year tenure as CEO of HHS as this was his last Board Meeting before he leaves CCHHS on May 6. Chairman Batts reported that Dr. Terry Mason will serve as interim CEO.

Authorization to establish a not-for-profit corporation to raise funds for CCHHS to carry out their mission was requested. It would be called the Cook County Health Foundation and would have a board that would be independent of the county and the independent board. The purpose would be to raise money to support county health services. No action was taken on this.

Mr. Foley reported that a rehearing has been scheduled for May 10 concerning the closing of the Oak Forest inpatient beds. He stated that this part of the Strategic Plan continues to be a challenge since there has been miscommunication about what is planned for Oak Forest. It is not really closing - but changing the nature of the services offered at the facility.

Mr. Foley recognized the Board for their courage in dealing with the issues at CCHHS. He outlined the following priorities for the board going forward:

1. Get past the layoffs and displacement process - rebuild morale and address employee satisfaction
2. Need to implement the Strategic Plan with the changes at Oak Forest being critical
3. Build infrastructure to move system forward ie. hiring process
4. Address revenue shortfall
5. Work with the county administration on the Independent Board structure and function
6. Enhance the image of CCHHS

Neil Khare from President Preckwinkle's office presented the CC Performance Management Initiative which he made clear is very important to the President. The Initiative is intended to provide good timely accurate data so management can make decisions and will make Cook County government transparent and accountable. There will be quarterly reports that will tie performance indicators to budget. There are 2 groups that are providing pro bono consulting services to assist departments in the process of goal setting so that robust goals can be established that are outcome oriented. By 2013 the system will be operational and the quarterly reports will be published. Senior management at the hospital has been trained and the training will continue with all union leadership.

The meeting went into closed session at 10:08am.

Board of Commissioners Meeting

Board of Commissioners Meeting

April 20, 2011

The Board Meeting was called to order at 10:10am by President Preckwinkle. After the opening prayer and the pledge the first order of business was a motion to first consider an item from the New Items Agenda. The motion was approved and the item was the announcement of the recipient of the 2011 Cook County Frontline Award, a new initiative to encourage Cook County employees to submit innovative ideas to help achieve fiscal responsibility, and increase transparency and accountability in services. The winner was Andy Polina, an employee in the Facilities Management Dept., with the winning idea that Cook County should implement a database for tracking and purchasing of supplies and materials countywide. His idea was chosen from the 60 that were submitted.

The Finance Meeting was convened at 10:20am by Comm. Daley, Finance Committee Chairman. Comm. Collins continued to vote against all bills submitted pertaining to Shakman Compliance. She is usually joined in her dissent of these bills by Comm. Murphy and Sims but they were not in attendance at this meeting. Comm. Collins also questioned why so many outside attorneys were being paid for indigent clients in Juvenile Cases. She thought the Public Defenders office should be handling these cases so they could keep their Public Defenders employed. Pat Reardon from the Public Defenders Office stated that in many cases the Public Defender cannot defend both the parent and the child in such cases - making it necessary to hire outside lawyers. They are in the process of setting up a Conflict Unit which would establish the "wall" necessary to prevent conflict of interest in such cases. They anticipate that this could bring a savings of $500,000, but they would probably need to hire additional lawyers to be able to handle the increased work within their office. Comm. Daley said there would always be a need for outside lawyers though even if such a system were put in place. Comm. Collins inquired as to how the lawyers were assigned to cases and stated that more women and minority lawyers should be used. A representative from the Chief Judge's Office stated that there is a pool of lawyers and it is up to the judge who gets assigned to a case. Lawyers have to apply to be in the pool and anyone can apply. He also stated that the Chief Judge's Office would provide the commissioners with a written outline of the process for establishing the lawyer pool and how the pool is utilized by the judges.

The Revenue Report for the first quarter of the fiscal year indicated a shortfall of $16.6m as reported by the Comptroller. While the shortfall was not only due to decreased revenue at HHS the questioning was directed to HHS. Mr Ayres, CFO for the HHS, stated that assumptions were made when they did their budget that are not coming to fruition and they now anticipate a $40-50m shortfall by year end. He indicated they struggle with hiring problems and continue to have billing problems. He stated that they have 43 available positions as billing coders but have only been able to offer positions to 3 people since those applying were not qualified. Comm. Silvestri and Gainer asked questions to clarify what the issues in hiring were but there did not seem to be a clear indication of where the problem was. It was unclear as to whether the County hiring process was hampering hiring or if this was an HHS hiring problem. Comm. Tobolski and Schneider indicated that perhaps there would be an opportunity to work with local community colleges or the POET office to establish training programs for these jobs. The Finance Committee was adjourned at 11:40am.

Zoning and Building Committee had one item deferred and the rest all approved. Roads and Bridges agenda was all approved and the Board reconvened at 11:46am.

The only item on the board agenda that provoked much discussion was a resolution introduced by President Preckwinkle to oppose conceal carry laws in Illinois and Cook County. After a few brief speeches a roll call vote was taken. Ayes - 10 - Butler, Collins, Daley, Fritchey, Gainer, Garcia, Reyes, Steele, Suffredin, Tobolski Nays - 4 - Beavers, Gorman, Goslin, Schneider

Absent - 3 - Murphy, Silvestri, Sims. The Resolution was approved.

The remaining items on the agenda were approved or referred to committees with minimal discussion and then the New Items were considered. There were 11 new items to be considered and as usual the New Items Agendas were not available for the public at the meeting. They probably were available prior to the meeting online although items 9-11 were not submitted until April 20. The items were only referred to by number during the meeting and with little discussion it was difficult to know what the items were. Comm. Silvestri did raise a question about whether the new items could be acted on and it was stated that when they vote to suspend the rules to take up 1 item on the New Items Agenda that should be interpreted to mean they are suspending all the rules pertaining to the new items including the 72 hour rule. There was some discussion about whether that was allowed under the Open Meetings Act but the meeting proceeded with the understanding that the stated interpretation was correct.

New Items of note - (observer went online after the meeting to determine what the items were since discussion during the meeting did not reveal the nature of the items being acted on)

• A resolution about the Capital Improvements Program for Fiscal Years 2011-15 was referred to the Capital Improvements Committee.
• A minor change to the Code of Ethical Conduct was approved.
• A proposed Ordinance establishing the Cook County Open Government Plan was referred to the Technology Committee. The purpose of this plan is "to increase transparency and accountability and informed public participation and to create economic development opportunities....by making certain information available online in a machine-readable, open format."

The meeting was adjourned at 12:20pm.