By Tim Jones - Nov 30, 2011
Toni Preckwinkle runs the second- largest U.S. county, a storied sewer of corruption whose embrace of the dark side began more than 140 years ago when commissioners accepted bribes for a contract to paint the seat of local government in Chicago -- with whitewash.
Burying this legacy of malfeasance is just the start of Preckwinkle’s challenge as Cook County’s chief executive. While two state lawmakers have proposed separating the county from Illinois and creating the 51st state, the board president’s problems are more serious: She recently closed a $316 million deficit in a $3.1 billion budget that mainly covers the cost of tossing people in jail and providing health care for those who can’t pay for it.
Preckwinkle, 64, a self-described progressive Democrat, former high-school history teacher and the first woman elected to lead the county of 5.2 million, is following a new script dictated by political realities. She’s rolling back sales taxes, pushing for the release of 1,000 nonviolent inmates and, in a departure from the take-care-of-your-pals heritage, laying off 800 employees.
“This is a terrible time to be in government, especially a terrible time to be a chief executive,” Preckwinkle said in a Nov. 21 interview in her fifth-floor office at the City and County Building, 175 steps down a corridor from her more famous colleague, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Sun Times Editorial
A government budget is more than a compilation of numbers. It’s also a statement of priorities — and values.
On that basis, we like much of what we see in Cook County’s proposed 2012 fiscal year budget.
The budget shows Board President Toni Preckwinkle is following through, for the most part, on her pledge to rescind the sales tax increase enacted under her predecessor (a “use tax” will remain on cars and boats). It reflects a county government determined to be more efficient. And it reflects a commitment to long-term planning, including allocating $400 million over three years for regional job-creating projects.
One sensible goal is to steer suspects in nonviolent crimes toward electronic monitoring ($67 a day) instead of incarceration at Cook County Jail ($143 a day) or the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center ($616 a day). Preckwinkle wants to reduce the daily average jail population by 1,000 and the JTDC population by 150.
That doesn’t just save money, it also puts a smart emphasis on working with — rather than simply locking up — young offenders.
We do question the wisdom, in particular, of a couple of proposals.
Compromise, communication, preparation were behind-the-scenes keys to
bipartisan victory
By Erika Slife
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle put forth a 2012 budget with new fees, higher taxes and hundreds of layoffs. In the end, she got all but one commissioner to vote for it.
To get there, the former Chicago alderman used a combination of compromise, communication and preparation to convince even the most reluctant commissioners to line up behind her spending plan.
"It's a true testament to the president, her ability to communicate to folks as to what our intentions are, what it is that we're going to do," said Commissioner Jeffrey Tobolski, D-McCook. "The bipartisan support that we see in here today, Republicans and Democrats working together to reach common points … to try and get to — not a perfect budget — but the best budget we could possibly pass."
Although the final vote looked easy — only Preckwinkle's adversary, Commissioner William Beavers, D-Chicago, held firm in his opposition — it was a vote nine months in the making.
Preckwinkle chief of staff Kurt Summers said the work involved is symbolized by the office's designated mascot — a duck.
"The story of the duck is, above water, it's graceful, and it's moving through the water effortlessly, but below, it's paddling furiously to stay afloat," Summer said. "It looks like it's easy, but it's not."
By Daily Herald Editorial Board
If all goes as it should, something astonishing in the annals of Cook County government will happen this Friday. For the second year in a row, the county budget will decline, the county board president will keep a campaign promise and the entire process will move forward on schedule.
That the final product will look somewhat different from the budget proposals county board President Toni Preckwinkle rolled out in late October is something of a given, but even that is a sign of the important changes taking place. Preckwinkle is pressing some painful measures on all interests in the county, but her willingness to at least listen to the people affected and their recognition of their responsibility to share in the sacrifices are combining to create a new attitude toward spending.
Case in point: “special service areas.” This is the name Preckwinkle gave to unincorporated regions sprinkled throughout the county that require government services, especially police protection. In her original proposals for fiscal year 2012, Preckwinkle was set to impose a special tax that could have added about $150 to individual property tax bills of people living in these regions. Suburban representatives like county Commissioner Tim Schneider, a Bartlett Republican, protested, urging more study before implementation of the tax, and Preckwinkle, a Chicago Democrat, relented, withdrawing her proposal in exchange for establishment of a task force that will study the costs of providing the services and recommend a permanent, fair solution.
