It was a double header for advocacy on Monday, as Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS) CEO Dr. Jay Shannon and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle used a morning press conference and an afternoon City Club speech to drive home the potential negative impact of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) on uncompensated care costs and the “shameless act of political cowardice” on the part of Congressmen–including Illinois Republicans–to vote for it last week. 

Commissioners have a straightforward agenda at the County Board today, with a morning of consent calendar items followed by two routine committee meetings. The Technology Committee will consider a $17 million contract extension, and the Litigation Subcommittee will meet in executive session for updates on several pending lawsuits against the county.

Proposals to build a 27-story, 250-unit residential building in Hyde Park and to replace a gas station at the corner of North and Ashland Avenues in Wicker Park with an eight story hotel are on tap for today’s Zoning Committee meeting.

One item that’d allow for an upzone of a warehouse building near the Jefferson Park Transit Station is noticeably missing from the agenda–it’s an application that’s been the subject of hours of testimony at two separate zoning meetings–one held by the Plan Commission in February, the other by the Zoning Committee in March.

Mid-afternoon Monday, calls and emails went out from the mayor’s office to aldermen: There will be no briefings this week on how the city plans to bail out Chicago Public Schools to prevent the district from ending the school year three weeks early on May 30.

The collective bargaining agreement between the city and the union representing the rank and file officers of the Chicago Police Department is one of the most expensive and politically fraught contracts a mayor can encounter. Typically a three year agreement, the contract between the city and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 (FOP), representing the rank and file officers of the Chicago Police Department, costs the city hundreds of millions of dollars a year in salaries to the city’s more than 11,000 police officers. And, since those officers are required to live in the city boundaries, they and their family members’ happiness with the contract has a direct impact on the mayoral election.

Happy Saturday!

Friday morning I sat down with Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey for an extensive interview. We touched on a lot of issues, but there’s five biggies that came out.

1. He Thinks CPS CEO Forrest Claypool Is A “Disaster” But Says He Doesn’t Think He’s Working Hand-In-Glove With Mayor Emanuel

“I think Forrest Claypool deserves no credit. He has been a disaster. And I mean that in all seriousness. Forrest doesn’t know much about schools at all. I think he shows it in many, many ways,” said Sharkey. But when I pressed him on whether or not he and Mayor Rahm Emanuel (who have worked together since the early 1980’s) are planning out the politics of schools, he demurred.

“I think that Forrest Claypool is out of sync,” with the Mayor, said Sharkey. That said, the Mayor has done little, in Sharkey’s mind, to improve his grade from the “F” CTU gave him starting in 2011. But asked a number of ways, he seemed unwilling to unload on Emanuel like he does on Claypool.

2. He Thinks It’s Pointless To Seek State Money Until Local Revenues For Schools Are Increased First

CTU and CPS have a common cause when it comes to getting additional funding from the state, but Sharkey believes CTU should not work with CPS until Mayor Emanuel (and the city’s wealthy) commits to higher city funding first.

I asked Sharkey this question three different ways: Shouldn’t you be working together to get more state funding for Chicago schools? He refused to say CTU would work with CPS in Springfield until, “the Mayor and the city fathers of Chicago... commit to raising half a billion dollars for the schools in the city to keep the schools from going off a cliff.”

3. CPS’ Constant State of Crisis Is Damaging Confidence In Chicago Schools

Sharkey believes CPS’ continued fiscal woes are eroding the district’s brand, making CPS less attractive to parents, regardless of whatever improvements in test scores or graduation rates are being made. He lays this at the feet of Claypool in particular, since every few months Claypool announces a new financial emergency, leading Chicagoans to constantly wonder how long long the schools have until they collapse. “We’re at an inflection point now,” he says. “It’s produced a crisis of confidence. We’re seeing a trickle of people leaving the system, turning into a stream and now we worry about a flood.”

4. Despite The Financial Problems, Sharkey Thinks CPS Is Improving

“There’s plenty to be proud about with public schools,” he says. “Virtually every teacher I know has their kids in public schools. And that’s something. If you went back 30 years ago, that wouldn’t have been the case.”

Part of the problem in CPS and CTU’s relationship is that the union doesn’t give CPS enough credit when it’s doing things right, he said. “Graduation rates are up. When I first started teaching in Chicago in ‘98, we used to pull our hair about why the freshman class had 800 students in it, why the senior class had 200 students in it. Literally you had that kind of drop-off in a lot our big schools. We know a lot more about that now, we’re a lot better at getting students to complete.”

5. He Really Loves The Idea of An Elected School Board

“You gotta have some democracy there,” he says. He believes that the current school board, which is controlled and named by the Mayor, is disconnected from citizens.

And even though most Chicagoans–those without kids or who have aged out of caring about schools–would likely not pay attention to the school board, there are enough parents in Chicago that would participate, he thinks. “The people who are active in local school councils are the ones who go for report card pick up and are active in the elections. You have high participation in terms of the ones who are in and out of the schools,” and that’s enough he says.

There’s a role for aldermen, too. “Right now, the people who get the phone calls about, ‘there’s a problem in my school…’ are aldermen, and yet those aldermen have extremely little control,” he said. “That’s a problem. Schools wind up being very local issues. People need to have governance that gives them confidence that their democratic voice is being taken into account.”  

One of City Council’s most pressing issues in the coming weeks is bound to be a solution for Chicago Public Schools’ fiscal woes. Two proposed solutions–handing over surplus TIF revenue or reinstating the city’s head tax–have both been floated for months in one form or another, and neither are particularly popular with the mayor’s administration.

But dozens of ordinances and calls for hearings on once-hot button issues have sat in committee for months (or more than a year) without a vote, including reforms to the Chicago Police Department, public campaign financing, examinations of the city’s workers compensation program and redevelopment agreements, and more strict rules for establishing TIF districts. Our rundown and previous reports are below.

Cook County’s Chief Financial Officer, Ivan Samstein, is leaving the administration in June to begin work as vice president and chief financial officer for the University of Chicago, “following a national search.” Samstein, one of the administration’s bigger personalities, has been with the county since 2012, and has been CFO for just over four years.

 

President Toni Preckwinkle’s new Deputy Chief of Staff Lanetta Haynes Turner was singled out in Cook County Independent Inspector General (OIIG) Patrick Blanchard’s latest report. It alleges she violated the county’s procurement code, misled commissioners, and “acted negligently in the performance of her duties in failing to properly vet a contractor for hire.” That vendor, Taylor Made, was the subject of a CBS 2 investigation from 2012 which found its head, Althea Taylor, had “ripped off” small businesses and lied about her qualifications.

A five-year-old partnership between Chicago and Cook County created to leverage private and public dollars to support job training and placement centers was the subject of a lengthy hearing by the Council’s Workforce Committee. The objective, it seemed, was to determine if it’s in the city’s best interest to dissolve the partnership and put the city back in control of its own funds.  

Officers-turned-aldermen steered conversation at a two hour subject matter hearing on mental health resources for cops Monday. Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41), Ald. Willie B. Cochran (20), and Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29) spoke about their own traumatic experiences on the force and the fear among officers that seeking help could diminish their standing with fellow officers, lead to the loss of their Firearm Owner’s Identification cards or even their jobs.

President Preckwinkle has chosen Lanetta Haynes Turner, the Executive Director at Cook County Justice Advisory Council (JAC), to fill the recently-vacated position of Deputy Chief of Staff. Preckwinkle spokesperson Frank Shuftan said Turner’s JAC replacement has not yet been chosen.

Aldermen on the Council’s Workforce Committee will meet Tuesday morning to discuss ways the city could take back federal funds earmarked for a special job training partnership the city has with Cook County.

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A resolution Workforce Committee Chair Pat O’Connor (40) introduced in April prompted the subject matter hearing. It suggests the funds be redirected from the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership to the city’s Department of Family and Support Services (DFFS) in order to expand existing job training and placement programs the city offers for city youth, the formerly incarcerated, the homeless, and other vulnerable populations of the city.

Every year, the city receives federal dollars as part of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), a law President Obama signed in 2014 to help job seekers access employment, education, training and support services. It’s specifically designed to match the chronically unemployed or the unskilled with opportunities in burgeoning sectors of the global economy.  

Since 2012, a significant portion of those dollars have been earmarked for an initiative Chicago set up with Cook County. Established by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and President Toni Preckwinkle, the partnership was developed as a way for the city and county to combine resources and broaden outreach for employers and job seekers. It’s one of the biggest workforce development entities in the country and is mostly funded through federal grants from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Since its launch, the partnership has raised about $32 million from private entities and has connected nearly 40,000 people with a job. Last year, Workforce Partnership Executive Director Karin Norington-Reaves told county commissioners in 2016 her organization helped place 8,726 people placed in jobs, enroll 19,502 in services, and 5,400 people in educational and vocational training. It operates 12 workforce centers around the city and county.

Yet, six months ago, aldermen expressed confusion about the partnership–for some it was the first time hearing of the program–and suggested it wasn’t living up to its mandate. At that meeting, the concerns voiced by aldermen were best summed up by Ald. Jason Ervin (28) who said, “It’s like this entity that’s out there, taking in a damn good chunk of money that came to the city, entrusting it, and it’s operating as it sees fit, without any consultation with the bodies that have ceded that authority to you. That’s a challenge. I want the best in service for my residents, at the same time we don’t want to be disconnected from the services our residents are receiving. I think that’s the crux… There does not appear to be that collaboration.”

The job training component of the partnership overlaps with resources provided by DFFS, especially as it relates to employment opportunities for city youth and ex-offenders, resolution sponsors claim. In the preamble of the resolution, sponsors say DFFS is in a “unique position to offer Chicagoans direct assistance” with job training resources and other social service programs through its network of delegate agencies and support centers.

It calls on the committee to explore using money explore the possibility of using existing federal grant funds to increase capacity at the city’s Community Re-Entry Support Centers, Second Chance apprentice programs, and other existing initiatives catered toward connecting Chicagoans to job opportunities.

The Executive Director of Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, Karin Norington-Reaves, DFSS Commissioner Lisa Morrison Butler, and representatives from several delegate agencies that provide job training opportunities to residents on behalf of the city are expected to testify.  A representative from Cook County is also expected to testify.

 

A hearing on suicide rates and mental health resources for Chicago Police Officers is the only agenda item for Monday’s joint Finance and Public Safety committee meeting. Ald. Ed Burke (14) filed a resolution asking for answers on mental health resources for cops after the Justice Department investigation revealed the comparatively high suicide rate among officers in Chicago: as high as 29.4 per 100,000, according to Fraternal Order of Police estimates. CPD also has a low number of counselors to help cops cope with their mental health on the job.   

Happy Saturday!

This week brought the city’s biggest political announcement of 2017 so far, as well as more terrible, not-so-good news for Chicago Public Schools.

The Torture of CPS Parents

In Roman times, the rack was supposedly applied to the suspected assassins of Emperor Nero. In medieval England, it was used on prisoners in the Tower of London.

In modern Chicago, the rack is used too, but as a mental torture on Chicago Public School parents, who steadily watch their state and city governments pull just a bit more every day, gradually wrenching the system apart, causing them to wonder if there will be a full school year in 2017.

Yesterday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel let some pressure off the rack, when he announced he will ensure Chicago Public Schools will stay open for the rest of this school year, even if the city, not the state, has to pay for it.

At stake is a CPS funding hole of tens of millions of dollars the school system says it needs to keep doors open past June 1, for the last three weeks of the school year. Gov. Bruce Rauner says he won’t sign a bill to pay for it, and the Democratic-controlled state legislature doesn’t have enough votes to sustain his veto.

And so the rack goes: click-click!

Part of the agony is that CPS has refused to release an exact accounting of how much is needed. Maybe as much as $215 million, maybe $124 million is needed. It depends on what you count. It’s hard to be sure.

Emanuel’s move to release pressure came Friday afternoon, after Cook County Circuit Court Judge Franklin Valderrama handed down a crushing blow to the Chicago Public Schools’ suit against the State of Illinois, which claimed the state discriminated against Chicago in how it distributed funding to CPS. Valderrama refused the city’s request for a preliminary injunction against the state and found CPS had not identified any specific mechanisms that caused discrimination.

In other words, the courts aren’t going to step in in time.

Unless the Illinois General Assembly passes a funding bill for CPS with enough votes to sustain Gov. Bruce Rauner’s expected veto, Chicago is going to have to pay for it.

Chicka-click-click!

And so, reading the tea leaves, Mayor Emanuel announced that one way or another, Chicago citizens will pay the difference. Exactly how, Mayor Emanuel wasn’t saying. But last week aldermen had plenty of suggestions, from TIF money to left over Skyway sale funds, to creating a new head tax.

Gov. Rauner has got to be loving this. He stared down Emanuel, and made Chicago pick up the check, setting a precedent for Chicago to get less state money. That’s a real victory he can take back to every voter outside of Chicago.

But the CPS still has structural funding problems. It’s far more likely than not we’ll have to deal with this problem again next year.

Start cranking it up! Chick-chick-clink!

 

What Now For Kurt Summers?

City Treasurer Kurt Summers’ announcement Wednesday morning had all the elements of a political cliffhanger. The month before, he told his supporters in an email that he was considering running for governor, then followed up with messages asking for their contributions. His quarterly campaign finance reports, released last week, showed expenditures for $31,550 for polling. He made a few contributions to statewide Democratic organizations. The Democratic field lacked an African-American candidate, giving Summers a credible path to winning the Democratic nomination.

Maybe this guy was really going to do it!

But then he didn’t.

Instead, Summers took to the podium, announced his non-candidacy, and brought out candidate J.B. Pritzker to give him a full-throated endorsement.

Deciding to run for higher office is a deep, personal decision. In my past life as a political consultant, I walked through the choices with people deciding to run or not, and watched them agonize over the choice. For those of us on the outside–the watchers, cheerleaders, what-have-you–we can never know what goes through their minds and hearts. Instead, we’re left with the what-might-have-beens.

New York Governor Mario Cuomo’s fueled up plane on the tarmac, ready to take him to New Hampshire in 1991 is probably the strongest image in my mind. But there’s the might-have-been candidacy of Tom Dart for Mayor in 2011 or Lisa Madigan for Governor in 2010 (which lingers now). What could have happened?

Never mind all that. Because Kurt Summers is still a visible politician with a great resume: Chief of Staff to County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, strong private sector finance experience, and now a solid record of improving Chicago’s money management. He’s sharp and has interesting insights on improving Chicago’s economic growth as we heard in our podcast interview last December..

So if not governor, then, what?

Democratic consultants and politicians I spoke to this week were surprised he chose not to run. “What does he have to lose? You run, it goes well, you win. It doesn’t, you endorse someone else and gain a higher name ID along the way,” said one politico who wished to remain anonymous.

Many of Summers’ backers are also Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s backers, like Michael Sachs, who gave Summers’ his private sector finance gig. So it would be a big challenge to run against Emanuel for mayor in 2019.

Illinois has two Democratic U.S. Senators, and the next Senate election isn’t until 2020, and it seems unlikely Dick Durbin would step down then. Even so, three years is a long wait in political time.

“Maybe he can just wait his turn? He’s certainly not in a position to run against Emanuel,” said another Democratic wag.

So, how long is Summers willing to wait?

 

Note: This article originally misstated that the Democratic field lacked a "minority candidate" that is incorrect. Indian-American Ald. Ameya Pawar is a Democratic candidate.