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Monitor: Patronage still influences county hiring
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Chicago Sun-Times
By Steve Patterson, Staff Reporter
March 3, 2008
As the Cook County board is adding hundreds of new jobs to
the payroll, a federal hiring monitor reports that political
patronage continues to influence county hiring.
In a filing with the U.S. District Court, Julia Nowicki cites
repeated examples of patronage among the hundreds of claims
she's investigating — including an employee boasting
shortly after he was hired that he was a “soldier for
Stroger” and would soon be everyone's boss.
In fact, the employee did quickly become a supervisor —
and has been using county fax machines to process orders for
political materials, Nowicki wrote.
Job filings at the county hospitals often changed on orders
from “downtown,” her filing states, while some
workers complained about being “blackballed” for
not doing political work.
One county employee said that, after requesting a promotion,
the worker was harassed at home about joining a political
ward organization.
“Illegal political consideration in employment decisions
were common at Cook County,” Nowicki wrote. “There
is no information or event that has been presented ... that
would indicate that illegal political patronage has been eliminated.”
Nowicki filed the 54-page documents Friday, the same day the
county board voted to raise the sales tax 1 percent in order
to balance the county's 2008 budget. That budget includes
hundreds of new positions as well as raises for thousands
more.
