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OT friendly Cook County nurse keeps her jobChicago DefenderNovember 16, 2005By Chris Kirkham, Medill News ServiceIn a meeting filled with political jockeying, the Cook County Board on Tuesday reappointed an Oak Forest Hospital nurse who made almost $200,000 in overtime last year. The Oak Forest nurse specialist, Usha Patel, was at the center of a Debate earlier this year on limiting overtime pay for county employees. Her reappointment came after a heated yelling match between Board President John Stroger and two other commissioners. The board resolved in May to limit paid overtime to 20 hours a week per employee. Employees can work no more than 624 overtime hours each year, or 30 percent of regular working hours, except in emergency situations. According to a Chicago Tribune investigation earlier this year, Patel Worked 2,746 hours of overtime in 2004, boosting her yearly income to almost $300,000. Her normal salary is about $90,000, according to Oak Forest Hospital officials. Tuesday's battle came after Commissioner Carl Hansen asked Stroger why Patel's overtime hours already exceed the limits set in May. "You've got a budgetary restriction, and it sounds to me like they've already exceeded that budgetary restriction," Hansen said. "When we pass something on this board, you've got to implement it. You're the guy in charge." Stroger and Oak Forest Hospital officials countered that the nurse should be praised for her dedication to the job. In the midst of being drowned out by Hansen's yelling, Stroger said: "These guys have done a wonderful job." "Three hundred thousand dollars worth of wonderful job," Hansen fired back. Louise Moo-Young, director of nursing at Oak Forest, said Patel has specialized skills that are often needed on weekends and understaffed days. Patel is a wound specialist whose work also includes inserting catheters and intravenous devices. "She is so concerned about the care patients need," Moo-Young said. "We have to take care of them 24/7." But Hansen said there must be other nurses to spread out the overtime hours. "You could get nurses coming out of retirement who would work for $300,000 a year," he said. Despite the fracas, all commissioners except Hansen and Commissioner Tony Peraica, who is seeking the Republican nomination to face Stroger for board president, approved Patel's reappointment at Oak Forest, where she has worked since 1984. In other matters, Commissioner Mike Quigley asked for a monthly, public report giving total expenses for legal cases completed during the previous month. Quigley said the current system, which lists expenses week by week, doesn't give an accurate picture of how much the county is spending in litigation. He also asked that totals for each case be reported at the end of each budget year. Quigley also introduced a resolution that calls for finding an outside manager to oversee the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center within 60 days of passage. The American Civil Liberties Union sued Cook County in 1999 for a range of abuse issues at the detention center, known as the Audy Home. The resolution comes as the ACLU asked a federal judge to appoint an independent monitor last week. The resolution will be discussed at an upcoming committee meeting.
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