Preckwinkle to Dart: Why is 20% of your staff on medical leave?

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle threw down a challenge to Sheriff Tom Dart Thursday, accusing him of abandoning budget negotiations and saying he can meet her 16 percent cutback by reining in medical leave cases.

Preckwinkle derided Dart's previous comments that he would have to “patrol the county on his bicycle” to meet her budget goals and said he could start cutting by taking a close look at the 20 percent of sheriff's department employees who are on medical leave.

Dart spokesman Steve Patterson didn't dispute that figure, but said Dart had not quit budget negotiations as Preckwinkle said during a meeting Thursday with the Daily Herald editorial board.

“The fact that we're not cooperating — today is the first time we've heard that,” Patterson said.

Preckwinkle said the sheriff's office has a disproportionate number of employees on family and medical leave and on disability and taking workers' compensation, adding that Dart has to “tighten up his work force and save money.”

According to Preckwinkle, the sheriff has 28 percent of the county work force, but accounts for 39 percent of county employees on medical leave and 40 percent of the county's worker's comp cases. While acknowledging the unique demands of law enforcement, she said New York City's corrections department had cut its percentage of employees on leave to single digits with tight enforcement and regular checks on employees on leave, and her Chief of Staff Kurt Summers Jr. added that the Chicago Transit Authority had made similar reductions by bringing in a third party to monitor employees on leave.

Acknowledging that abuses in the Family and Medical Leave Act are “a problem,” Patterson said Dart's office had given Preckwinkle the numbers she cited and that other departments had similar rates. “It's the same way at the hospital,” he added. “The county government has an FMLA problem.”

He added that Preckwinkle and the County Board handle disability claims and worker's comp. “We have no role in that,” Patterson said. “It's her job. It's her office's function.”

The sheriff's department is by far the largest county agency not to negotiate double-digit cuts with Preckwinkle since she took office in December.

“Basically, at the beginning of the week, they stopped talking to us,” Preckwinkle said, backed up by County Commissioner John Daley, chairman of the finance committee overseeing the budget process.

“For someone to leave the table is not right,” Daley said.

“She's got a lot of errors,” Patterson responded.

The Cook County Board of Review and Board of Commissioners also had not yet agreed to cuts.

Patterson echoed the sheriff's offer to take over patrols of Cook County forest preserves, allowing for elimination of the Forest Preserve District Police, and to save money by closing suburban courthouses on weekends. But Preckwinkle said the forest preserve idea had been abandoned for now and that Chief Judge Timothy Evans vetoed the idea of weekend courthouse closures, making his budget cuts elsewhere.

Preckwinkle said the county's $487 million budget shortfall actually had to be made up not in the $3 billion overall budget, but in the $2.2 billion in operating expenses.

The public defender's office and State's Attorney Anita Alvarez have agreed to 10 percent cuts, she said, but all other departments will be held to a minimum of 16 percent cuts.

Preckwinkle said she's leading the way with a head count reduction of almost 20 percent in her office, with 418 layoffs. She said countywide there would be more than 1,000 layoffs, or at least 5 percent of the county work force, with that figure perhaps rising to 8 percent after the court clerk, assessor, state's attorney and sheriff make their cuts.

“I know I'm putting a lot of people out on the street with this budget,” Preckwinkle said.

Only the Inspector General's Office is receiving a boost in funding. “We believe this is a part of county government that needs more resources, not less,” Preckwinkle said.

She projected modest new fees and new sources of revenue to make up the rest of the shortfall, along with rescheduling debt payments.

Preckwinkle delivers the budget to the County Board Tuesday, and it has to be balanced and passed by the end of the month to meet requirements that it be approved within the first quarter of the fiscal year, which started Dec. 1.

Elected county officials, including Dart, will have hearings scheduled next month before the County Board to argue their case for more money.

“The Daily Herald knows more about the budget than the county elected officials,” Patterson complained Thursday. “Hopefully, we can see the budget by then.”