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.

Numerous Chicago Public Schools funding future questions were answered in a few short hours Friday afternoon, as a Circuit Judge denied a CPS demand to fund the school system and Mayor Rahm Emanuel ended speculation that schools would close early by promising that the city would step in to close the funding gap.

The Daily Line has learned of several exits and entrances at the County Building this season.

Cook County officials logged about $800k in total receipts for the first quarter of 2017, $500k of that from individual contributions. While County Democratic Party Chair Joe Berrios (as usual) brought in the biggest haul, and President Toni Preckwinkle made some key  Comm. Bridget Gainer’s committee funds are nothing to scoff at.

For the first three months of 2017, aldermen received nearly $1 million dollars in contributions according to the first quarter reports for 2017 filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections. However, after counting donations made to Democratic ward organizations or independent expenditure accounts controlled by aldermen, the number jumps to about $2 million. Most of funds were collected by a select few aldermen–the average quarterly take was $32k, the maximum, $380k.

The Council’s Committee on Human Relations held a subject matter hearing Wednesday to enquire about the recent spike in hate crimes in Chicago and to learn how the Chicago Police Department tracks reported incidents.

]Since the start of 2017, there have been five more reported hate crimes year to date compared to 2016–bringing the total to 30 reported incidents, according to Sergeant Lori Cooper of the Chicago Police Department’s Civil Rights Unit.

The Chicago Police Department and members of the Community Policing Advisory Panel (CPAP) held their second of three town halls on community policing Tuesday night at Sullivan High School in Rogers Park. About 100 people turned out to the event, which was formatted little like past town hall meetings related to CPD reform, where officials and panelists sat at the front of the room listening to community members at a distance.