Reinventing Cook County

Chicago Tribune

February 28, 2005

Editorial

Voters, take a bow. The revolution you launched by dumping five incumbents from the Cook County Board in 2002 has bagged a real victory. The passage of a county budget without the new taxes Board President John Stroger wanted may not strike historians as momentous. But it's a big step toward dismantling the patronage pits and insider deals that have long exploited Cook taxpayers.

Not that all the losers were as gracious in defeat as Stroger was. Several board members who see county government as a jobs program for their family members, pals and ward heelers wore stunned, sullen looks last week as a majority of the board approved one necessary cut after another to Stroger's $3 billion budget.

No, the budget battle of 2005 may be over, with taxpayers spared more gouging. But the war to preserve waste at Cook County continues. Some officials have reacted shamefully, threatening to reduce help to people who rely on the county for health or other services. Those officials betray a two-fold agenda: (1) to frighten citizens by pretending the County Board would let them take those reckless steps, and (2) to protect their executive staffs of well-paid assistants, as well as their more modestly priced political operatives.

When Washington pols play this game, they warn that budget cuts will force them to close the Lincoln Memorial. When mayors play it, they say they'll have to shut police and fire stations.

So it was that county health boss Daniel Winship threatened to close four health clinics. By amazing coincidence, the four he chose are in the districts of County Board members Earlean Collins, Liz Gorman, Gregg Goslin and Michael Quigley--all of whom had voted for budget cuts. Winship's doomsday list included operating rooms, mammography vans and abortion services--the last of which, evidently, the county pays triple the cost of other providers.

Poor Winship didn't divulge who in county government was using him as a puppet. But several board members retorted with a radical truthectomy. They noted that he was threatening to reduce patient services--but not one of the duplicative administrative offices that even he admits exist. They asked, for example, why Stroger Hospital needs 338 finance positions, when similarly sized Northwestern Memorial has 120. Quoth Winship: "We have a large number of entities that are our programmatic affiliates." Right.

Board member Tony Peraica answered Winship's threats with his own: If Winship cuts services rather than overhead, he risks being fired.

Commissioner Larry Suffredin has a smart proposal to keep Cook officials from doin'-the-Winship: a confidential hot line so whistle-blower employees can report bosses who try to trim services for people instead of bureaucracy. And board member Forrest Claypool, who as head of the Chicago Park District cut one-quarter of his workforce in 18 months, has a word for what the county desperately needs: "de-layering." That means dumping lots of people with assistant, associate, coordinator and so forth in their titles.

Beyond monitoring the relatively tiny budget cuts to protect services to the poor, board members need to execute a complete streamlining. Quigley's detailed "Reinventing Cook County" reports are superb road maps for consolidating, downsizing and modernizing for the 21st Century a government designed in the 19th.

Without that kind of bold restructuring, future budget shortfalls will be far, far worse.

Until now, at least, reinventing Cook County hasn't been Stroger's priority. He fought the wave of change that washed over him last week, at one point trying to hold the votes of his allies by reminding them, "I've helped your political ambitions with my money and resources."

In the end, though, Stroger stopped fighting--and voted to finish the budget. Asked if his departments could live with the cuts, he responded, "I'm certain we can if we have to."

Well said, Mr. Stroger. For too long at Cook County, as at other hyperinflated governments, officials have talked about what they "need," not about what hard-pressed taxpayers can afford.

Now that's changing. All because, back in 2002, some angry Cook voters said "Enough!" Many more will have that opportunity in 2006.

Copyright 2005, Chicago Tribune Company

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