Cook County Bureau of Administration Budget Hearing

January 25, 2007

TO: Roberta Lynch, Deputy Director, AFSCME Council 31 FR: John Kohlhepp, Legislative Affairs Specialist

Below is a report on the hearing held today to hear testimony from the key administrators within the Bureau of Administration, including OPD chief Ed Burnette. I have tried to include all discussion/questioning that was relevant to our members in the OPD.

Commissioners Present: Steele, Butler, Beavers, Murphy, Quigley, Collins, Sims, Maldonado, Daley, Silvestri, Snyder, Gorman, Periaca, Goslin.

The Bureau of Administration Chief, Kilgallon, presented a $117 million budget which is $18 million lower this year than it was last year. It includes outsourcing of food service and janitorial service workers at the juvenile detention center and 256 jobs slotted for elimination. 122 of those positions are from the Office of the Public Defender and 11 are from the Office of the Medical Examiner. The Public Defenders are expected to work a 4 day work week.

Questions from the Commissioners:

Cmsr. Beavers:

1. Are you meeting your target adjustment?

Kilgallon: Yes

2. How many layoffs will there be in the Public Defenders Office (OPD)?

Kilgallon: 36 attorneys and 11 clerical.

3. How many layoffs will there be in the Medical Examiners Office?

Kilgallon: All the positions that are being eliminated are currently open positions that have not yet been filled.

Cmsr. Collins:

1. How many staff are there currently in the OPD?

Burnett: 150 support personnel, 75 investigators, 498 PDs, and 51 supervisors.

2. What is the average caseload? Burnett: It is 250 felonies a year and 1900 misdemeanors per year. That is 60% over national guidelines for felonies and 400% over the national guidelines for misdemeanors. The Courts will appoint private firms if we have a slowdown and we will have to pay the private firms for their caseloads.

This is a problem that I outlined in my impact statement that I included in my budget. I recently learned that the Commissioners did not receive it. The impacts of these cuts will harm our ability to effectively manage caseloads at the First Municipal and Civil Courts. Private firms will be paid by the County to handle cases that we do not cover in the OPD because there is a constitutional mandate to cover those courtrooms.

3. Collins then made a statement that the ultimate responsibility of the budget falls on the County Board. In order to make the right decisions, they need ALL the information about the impacts of these cuts on the Departments.

4. Daley and Collins ask to see all impact statements submitted by the department heads.

5. How many investigators does the OPD employ?

Burnett: 71 under the proposed budget and 85 are allocated and budgeted for the previous year.

6. Why are those positions currently unfilled?

Burnett: OPD had problems hiring those people because the Human Resources department would not allow them to be hired due to the budget freeze.

Daley interrupted and said the OPD was supposed to be exempted from the hiring freeze as part of the public safety exemption.

Burnett: The Bureau would not approve our hiring decisions so the positions remain unfilled.

Kilgallon: The new budget does not include any open positions so this will not happen in the upcoming year. We also have industrial engineers who will use scheduling and other methods to minimize the impact of the cuts in the OPD.

7. If caseloads are too high now how are you just wiping out these positions? Won’t that just increase the workloads?

Kilgallon: There will be impacts and we are working with industrial engineers to minimize those impacts.

8. Are there other areas of the Bureau’s budget that we could cut that have less of an impact on public services? Kilgallon: The OPD budget is about 40% of the Bureau’s budget and we need to cut that budget in order to maintain the core mission of the other Bureau agencies.

Cmsr. Murphy:

1. Of the 111 filled positions that are being eliminated, how many are over grade 20?

Kilgallon: All the 36 attorneys and some laborers and other trade positions.

2. How many are management workers? I want a breakdown of all eliminated positions by job classification.

Kilgallon: There are 256 jobs slated for deletion and 111 of those are filled.

Cmsr. Snyder:

1. If we hire outside attorneys to cover the work currently done by the OPD, where do we pick up the outside costs in the budget?

Budget Chief: All outside legal work will be done Pro Bono.

Kilgallon: Litigation funding comes from line 490 or 499.

2. Will costs rise?

Budget Chief: The Administration believes that Pro Bono work is done regularly and will continue.

3. Will we have attorneys to represent all the indigent clients in our OPD system now?

Budget Chief: Yes

Cmsr. Silvestri:

1. Asks immediately for Burnett to answer his questions.

2. We need to maintain funding for prosecutors and public defenders. The bulk of the OPD budget and the most important part of the budget are the public defenders. Why are there so many public defender reductions and there are no reductions in supervisors? There are no reductions over Grade 22. Burnett: Over the past few years we have gone from 62 supervisors to 49 supervisors. There has not been an equal reduction in public defenders. We are not adequately staffed anywhere in the OPD.

3. Do your supervisors perform defense work and take cases? Burnett: Yes

4. Is there an added Grade 22?

Burnett: No

5. If OPD is deleting a supervisor at $94,000 and adding one at $107,000, how is that a budget reduction.

Burnett: We need additional supervisors.

6. What is the average salary of a public defender?

Burnett: $67,000.

7. What is the average supervisor’s salary?

Burnett: $90,000.

8. How many reductions are clerical, public defenders, and supervisors?

Burnett: There are 12 supervisors, 76 public defenders, and 32 clerical and investigators.

9. Why are we cutting staff in front line positions, like clerical and public defenders? We need to have more public defenders and clericals. We suffer from a lack of public defenders and clericals. We should move the $10 million saved by the Office of the Circuit Court Clerk and add it to this budget. This is the place where we need that money. This is poor prioritization.

Kilgallon: The departments have met their targets and we made these cuts. The financial burden of balancing the County budget always falls on the Bureau of Administration.

10. We need to move the $10 millions into the OPD and not keep all positions at the Clerk’s Office. Treating that office like a sacred cow is not right.

Kilgallon: The Bureau of Administration is down 24% in the last 7 years to meet the County’s budget. Daley: Without new revenue we have to make cuts somewhere.

11. Are we cutting enough supervisors at the OPD? We need more public defenders?

Burnett: Supervisors try cases. ABA standards show that we need these supervisors. OPD supervisors do real work and are engaged in the public defenders work on a daily basis. They are not just sitting around. Cutting these 12 supervisors is putting the County at risk for millions of dollars in legal fees.

Also, I have some revenue ideas that the Bureau has not entertained.

All Cmsrs: SHARE THEM! This is the time.

Burnett: At this point, Burnett walks them through the CDR process. Apparently, when a Bond is repayed from the County to the defendant, 10% is sent to the attorney for administrative fees. OPD has many of these sent to the County Treasury every year. OPD is trying to determine the amount of money it raises for the county each year through these CDRs.

12. Silvestri makes a long speech about the need to prioritize the OPD.

Cmsr. Quigley:

1. If people/families can afford a bond payment, they should be ale to afford some portion of their legal defense. Can we ask people to pay part of their legal defense?

Burnett: No. It is required that we provide the work at no cost.

2. Judges scarcely ask for the assets and liabilities form before assigning OPD counsel. It is unfair to ask OPD to raise revenue funds generated as other offices do. We should share the raised funds and integrate them into the larger budget.

Burnett: If we expect public defenders to work 4 days a week when prosecutors, judges, sheriffs, and other courtroom personnel are working 5 days, then it will nor work. The entire system will break down. The State’s Attorney budget was only reduced 10% while ours was reduced 17%.

3. I hope the administration will let the OPD speak freely. Pro Bono will not cover the gap left by these reductions. We need to figure out a system where we reward people for their Pro Bono work.

Cmsr. Maldonado:

1. Are you eliminating any positions currently funded by grants? Burnett: No.

2. How many Pro Bono attorneys are working with the OPD now?

Burnett: None.

Budget Chief: Pro Bono is does as a routine manner.

3. Isn’t Pro Bono work usually done on civil cases?

Bunrett: Pro Bono attorneys are usually inexperienced members of firms, there is no mechanism to keep them involved in the system and continually available to take cases, and there is no consistency or regularity in Pro Bono work.

4. Have you met the Industrial Engineers? How do you feel about working with them?

Burnett: Yes. I am not hopeful that their recommendations will work. We are down to 72 attorneys in the First Municipal alone. They carry the same caseload as the division carried when there were 90 attorneys. I do not see how we effectively carry that caseload and work a for day work week. This simply will not work.

Kilgallon: The industrial engineers will help to lessen the impact. The 4 day work week in OPD is a problem and the industrial engineers were hired to help us lessen the impact of that work schedule.

5. Please be candid and tell us about the true impact of the 17% cut on the OPD.

Burnett: The hardest hit divisions will be civil and first municipal. First Municipal will be down 14 public defenders, about 25%. The fiscal impact for continuances is in the millions of dollars. The total cost for continuances is upwards of $12 million dollars. The Civil Division will cost more in attorneys fees for appointed lawyers and those are for child protection cases.

6. There was more explanation of CDRs here.

7. There was some back and forth about whether the department heads are being silenced on the budget cuts. Daley, the Budget Chief, Kilgallon, and Burnett all deny any pressure to remain silent.

Cmsr. Butler:

1. Can we take the CDR money now? Is it legal?

Burnett: The question is can it be credited to the OPD. The treasurer currently collects the fees and they are deposited in county accounts. 2. Does Shackman effect the OPD?

Kilgallon: In 6 months, there will be a new Shackman exempt position list and we will evaluate all positions then.

3. What is the hiring process for the OPD?

Kilgallon: It is the same in OPD as in the rest of the County. There are posted positions and people apply and go through the interview process.

Cmsr. Peraica:

1. He came up with an idea on how to track the CDR monies in the County Treasury. 2. Does Doe vs. Cook County impact your office? Do you need special funds in order to comply?

Burnett: We attend some committee meetings and we do not need additional revenue to fall into compliance.

3. Peraica speechified about OPD. He said that the offices under the President are essential for a civilized society. The Durant, Doe, and Shackman cases are important to governing the County and we must comply with them.

Cmsr. Gorman:

1. She asked for an accurate list of employees by budgetary unit, all transfers, promotions, demotions, increases and decreases in salary, exempt positions, union and non union positions by union affiliation, date posted and date filled for all positions from Feb. 10, 2006 to Nov. 30, 2006 and from Dec. 1, 2006 to the present. She also asked for a list of all contracts for professional services.

2. On page G57, there is an appropriation transfer in corporate funds of $8.4 million. Why?

Kilgallon: That is the budgetary reduction line. It is the cut in 20% of the OPD pay as a result of them only working 4 days a week.

Cmsr. Beavers:

1. There is an elaborate staggering of OPD staff here. How is that done?

Kilgallon: The Industrial Engineers develop a current staffing plan and they recommend a future staff schedule to ensure adequate coverage of all needed areas.

Cmsr. Snyder:

1. How many people are employed by the Bureau of Administration?

Kilgallon: 1,800.

2. Is natural attrition from retirement or other reasons people leave County employment factored into this budget.

Kilgallon: No. It is not a factor. Those positions may or may not be filled this year as part of our further instruction from President Stroger to reserve 2% of our budget appropriation.

3. If one supervisor and one clerical staff were eliminated in every other department within the Bureau of Administration, we would save over $900,000, which will save 12 public defenders. I just did this math while I was sitting here. I suggest you go back to the drawing board and do some of these cost savings measures as well.