Provident Hospital modernization, Public Defender's case overload, Board of Review drama?
Good morning. I’m covering today’s Cook County Board of Commissioners Budget Hearing for the @CHIdocumenters starting at 9am.
09:03 AM Oct 26, 2021 CDT
They’re going over the budgets for the Cook County Health Dept, the Cook County Public Defender, Office of the County Clerk, Office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court, and the Cook County Board of Review.
Watch live here: https://www.cookcountyil.gov/service/watch-live-board-proceedings
The meeting starts abruptly at 9:30 with the Cook County Public Defender Sherone Mitchell Jr presenting his department’s FY2022 budget proposal.
I love how Sherone calls his staff defenders, it makes the free attorney’s who represent people for free sound like the superheroes they are!
He explains, “Providing defense for an accused person takes an entire team of people to support them. Defender to me means a member of our support staff assisting a mother getting to her court date, providing them with services they need to get through life, it’s an investigator-
Sharone shows a video of public defenders talking about their workloads. Attorneys on screen say they’re “drowning in cases.” One person has 220 cases assigned to him. “It’s impossible for me to represent my clients with the attention they deserve.”
Attorneys are sharing that they regularly work 11, 12, sometimes 14 hours a day, and continue working once they get home from the office.
Sharone shares that the national standard and average, set by the Illinois Supreme Court and other regulatory bodies, states that public defenders should have 400 misdemeanor clients per yr, 150 felonies clients per yr.
Cook County public defenders on average handle 1,200 cases for misdemeanors and 200 on average for felony cases. https://t.co/lH5vGU7Whv
This tik tok comes to mind upon hearing that.
https://twitter.com/drewmorgcomedy/status/1452359971828609024?s=20
Sharone introduces a short video from Stephen Ramsey, Chief of Investigations, about the need for more techonology support. He says the lack of tech for defenders is a safety issue for them and necessary for the changing landscape of how they practice law.
In one video, a defender shows a 2 foot pile of shrink wrapped folders, who explains that the huge caseloads and lack of technological support means that maintaining records and files is next to impossible. The Public Defenders office lacks the personnel to manage the paper work.
Commissioners and Defender Mitchell are talking about the need to digitize these records in the second biggest county in the country. “If god forbid something happened to that building, all those files would be gone forever.”
Defenders are legally mandated to retain paper files, for ex: Homicides - retain for 20 yrs after completion of sentence
The FY22 budget request wants to build a file maintenance team to address issues and work towards digitization &B includes hiring 6 file maintenance clerks.
Here’s a better pic of that slide comparing Cook County defender’s case loads and the national average: https://t.co/jebMpzlp1w
And a slide of the new 51 positions Sherone is asking for funding for. Wild that only 2 more interpreters are needed. https://t.co/TUmBOR22rb
A commissioner asks how many Latino Cook County public defenders there are. Sharone says that they match the national average, which is only 4%.
He says that’s not acceptable for our county and highlights the need to hire a manager of recruitment to hire a more diverse field.
That does it for the Cook County Defender budget hearing. Now, CEO of Cook County Health Isreal Rocha is going over his depts FY22 budget proposal.
The total budget for Cook County Health is going up by $500 million, to $3.9 billion. The Health Plan Services is the biggest driver in the increase. https://t.co/UXZMccBjQA
A commissioner asks about Gov Pritzker’s announcement that vaccines for children ages 5-12 will soon roll out. Rocha says that there’s a hearing from the CDC on Nov 2 and he anticipates it will be approved and rolled out soon. Pediatricians in Cook County are preparing.
Illinois leads the country in maternity mortality for African American women.
A commissioner asks Rocha to highlight the Office of Health Equity, west ‘21, in regards to tracking and improving maternal outcomes for Black women.
Rocha says that Cook County Health is focusing on doing bias outcomes and trainings b/c “When a woman of color registers a concern, it is not taken as seriously as when a white woman registers a concern, due to implicit bias of health workers across the country.”
Commissioner also asks how many people in Cook County Jail are there for non violent crimes and if they’re getting mental/behavioral health needs met.
Rocha says, “Many men get their mental health needs met in jail.”
Daily reminder that jail is not a mental health center!!!!!!
Rocha is talking about the increase in patients enrolled in County Care. He says ppl are using medicaid with greater frequency than ever before. To Rocha, it’s about market share and customer satisfaction, but is this trend due more to ppl losing their jobs? https://t.co/q7DEQYBRMr
CEO Israel Rocha announced that Provident Hospital of Cook County on the Southside is going to reinstate ambulance runs after a decade of drastically reduced services at the public hospital, including major cuts that happened just last year.
https://southsideweekly.com/county-budget-downgrades-er-services-and-closes-south-side-clinics/
The FY2022 budget for Provident Hospital will increase by $8 million from last year’s budget, from $63 to $71 million. Cook County Health plans to invest in imaging, dialysis, and other modernization projects at Provident, expand its surgical capacity, and restore ICU services.
The hospital cut ambulance services in 2011 in order to save money and to make room for outpatient care. The effect put a strain on other SouthSide hospital emergency departments. After additional downgrades in 2021, this news comes as a shock, and should be considered breaking.
Rocha says that those cuts happened before the Affordable Care Act existed. Now health care is available to millions of poor and underinsured ppl & there’s more revinue for the hospital from that. What’s changed is the coverage, growth, and who’s insured in the community.
Cook County Health presentation and Q&A is over, on to the Clerk’s budget proposal.
Cook County Clerk Karen A Yarbrough is talking about expanding her depths budget for vote by mail initiatives. Voting by mail is at an all time high, and budget’s increased b/c of printing, ink, logistics, mail drop, and PPE for workers.
Her presentation is short, and there’s no Q&A. Next is the Office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court. Clerk Iris Y. Martinez is talking about need to keep the court open 24/7 for domestic violence survivors who’s lives sometime depend on the court being available to them.
A brief Q&A. Next for the Financial Committee is the the Board of Review (BOR). The BOR reviews property assessment appeals and make corrections. They review taxes so that schools, libraries, municipalities, etc aren’t interrupted.
The BOR defends the County’s assessments at the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board (PTAB) which saves money for the County, Forest Preserve, etc every year.
BOR Commissioner Tammy Wendt just read a scathing statement on her own agency, calling into question fluffy pay raises for employees, saying there’s constant Open Meetings Violations, corruption, and a lack of equity in her own department.
This a little wild not gunna lie.
There’s only 3 board members on the BOR. https://www.cookcountyboardofreview.com/commissioners
After Tammy’s mic drop, Commissioner Larry Rogers responds that she violated the Ethics Ordinance by hiring her cousin, and that he’s not sure what she’s talking about.
Wendt brought up the fact that several staff members under the other two commissioners are receiving a 6-8% pay raise, and that the budget for Training and Professional Development is increasing from $30,000 in FY21 to $145,000 for FY22. She says this is a waste of tax payers $.
Is she a whistle blower? Or is this self serving?
When she brought up equity, she was referencing how the BOR ignores the 1st District and that she wants equity for the 1st District. That’s the loop, people. Equity?
A financial committee member (sorry, besides Daley I can’t tell who these ppl are on screen) is asking the commissioners questions. It’s sort of back to normal, but the tone is still tense. She asks about this $114,000 increase for training and professional development.
BOR Commissioner Roger answers: there were very few attorneys when he came, but they need to be there to appeal to industrial properties. They need to increase certification of the staff. It’s mainly for development.
Then she asks about reflecting better transparency and interdepartmental consistency. She doesn’t let the commissioner mansplain tax forms to her. “Listen, I don’t mind math, I’m an engineer. I just need you to have some transparency so I can make a decision on your budget.”
Then she says that this budget looks quite different than all the other county agency salaries. She asks why they have listed the budgetary increases for new hires as .08 and .02. Those numbers are supposed to represent people, not fractions.
She asks,
“Is this designed to intentionally obscure the true nature of the jobs?”
She ultimately says that she can’t in good faith go back to her constituents and tell them that the Board of Review’s proposed budget is justified to take their tax money.
Cook County Board Commissioner Larry Suffredin
lambasts Tammy Wendt for her disruptive antics, and says that he’s going to send a tape of this meeting to the Inspector General and the Board of Ethics and will ask them to do an investigation of the BOR.
County Board Commissioner Frank Aguilar from Cicero asks the BOR why property taxes in Cicero have gone up 200% when they’re giving Amazon tax breaks. He talks about small business owners- laundry mats, bakeries, corner stores, etc are suffering with $20,000 + in property taxes.
BOR commissioner Roger says that his agency doesn’t have control over that at all. It’s the Assessors office that does exemptions and sets taxes. BOR just reviews amendments.
Again, here’s the link for the live stream and to catch the recording after this meeting ends: https://cookcountyil.gov/service/watch-live-board-proceedings
Vice Chair Deborah Sims says that in her 28 yrs of service she’s never seen a meeting quite like this.
We revisit a few topics like tax breaks for Amazon & the pending IG and Ethics investigation & the meeting is adjourned.
Thanks for following along! Keep up with public meetings via @CHIdocumenters & @city_bureau.
Plz get in touch if you have any ?s, comments, or corrections.