County clout survives as workers lose jobs
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Chicago Sun-Times Editorial
April 6, 2007
After the Cook County Board passed its budget in February,
some 1,700 county workers lost their jobs, most of them front-line
workers like nurses, prosecutors, janitors and court clerks.
The cuts were brutal and demoralizing, but given the county's
precarious financial situation, they might have been defendable,
if not for the fact that far too much fat and patronage escaped
the ax. Nearly every day since then, it seems, we find more
proof that clout trumps common sense in President Todd Stroger's
world.
Who, for instance, would argue that Cook County needs a $95,000-a-year
liaison to churches and community groups more than it needs
sheriff's police? That is essentially the choice made by Stroger,
when he saved the job of Chinta Strausberg -- the county spokeswoman
who stopped speaking to the press months ago -- by creating
a new post for her.
Who would argue that the county needs a new $100,000-a-year
director of public affairs more than it needs prosecutors in
the courtroom? Stroger would, that's who. And get this: Andre
Garner won't be speaking to the press either -- his job is to
help craft Stroger's "message" and devise his new
public relations "strategy."
Who would opt to pay someone $86,000 a year to "better
inform the public" about services available at county hospitals,
instead of using that money to pay for a nurse or two at those
very hospitals? Stroger again. And John Gibson's job won't include
talking to the press either -- those duties will be handled
by spokesmen who are already paid by each hospital.
And who would fire Carl Sanniti, a nationally recognized expert
in juvenile justice, from the troubled Cook County Juvenile
Detention Center while retaining Maria Moreno Szafarczyk, the
sister of Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno, who has no background
in juvenile justice and still makes $85,000 a year? You guessed
it. County officials can argue all they want about how they
cut job titles and not names, but the bottom line is that the
person with clout survived while the person with expertise got
canned.
Those decisions and plenty of others don't make sense if you're
committed to reform, as Stroger says he is. They don't makes
sense if an efficient, well-run county government is your goal.
And they surely don't make sense to those hundreds of front-line
workers who were told their jobs were being cut because the
county can't afford them. Maybe all those highly paid PR guys
who don't talk to the media can have the guy who does talk to
the media -- whoever that is, whatever he makes -- explain it
to the rest of us.
