Pictured: Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois. [Stephen Hogan / CC BY 2.0]

While acknowledging comments from loved ones of dead Cook County Jail inmates during a Cook County Board committee meeting on Wednesday, commissioners a day later passed several larger sheriff’s office agenda items – among others – during their last meeting of 2024.

Those agenda line items included approval of a corrections staff consulting services contract renewal – amounting to a total of $234,000 after a requested $117,000 increase, according to county board documents. 

Commissioners also deferred a $2,500 proposed legal settlement in an alleged civil rights violation case involving the sheriff’s office to the county board’s finance committee. In addition, board members passed a resolution requesting the sheriff’s office to regularly testify before the county board’s criminal justice committee starting next month, which would touch on the status of changes made in operating the county’s electronic monitoring program.