The Cook County Board voted Monday to appropriate more than $8.6 million to pay for part-time workers and overtime for regular employees in 31 offices and agencies, prompting a charge of payroll padding.
Commissioner Robert Gooley (R., Homewood) accused the county of trying to deceive the public about the amount of money spent on overtime and part-time workers.
Gooley said the board was trying to hide the large amounts of overtime and extra employees by paying them through the little-noticed ”transfer of funds” procedure instead of funding them in the fiscal year budget that is passed each February.
”Here we`re 45 days into the budget and we`re already transferring millions of dollars,” said Gooley, a former mayor of Homewood. ”I think it`s ridiculous, and it`s a deceptive way to hide things. Why don`t they (the county offices) put these items in the budget right from the start?”
Commissioner John Stroger said the transfer method is used to utilize surpluses in various accounts. ”This method allows us to hold down the tax rate,” he said. ”If we put these items in the budget we`d have to increase taxes.”
Kevin Cuttone, county budget director, said all of the overtime and part- timers` funding is not included in the budget because ”the need for them varies from year to year and it isn`t always easy to predict.”
The agencies with the biggest transfers were County Hospital, more than $3.5 million; Sheriff James O`Grady, more than $2.2 million; Oak Forest Hospital, more than $1.2 million; maintenance and operation, $400,000; and State`s Atty. Richard M. Daley, the mayor-elect, $265,000.
Most of O`Grady`s transfers were to hire additional court-ordered correctional officers to cover the positions of other officers during lunch hours in maximum-security wings, said Spencer Leak, executive director of the Department of Corrections. Other costs included overtime for social workers to supervise the voter registration of 1,700 pre-trial detainees and overtime for sheriff`s police.
Terrence Hansen, County Hospital director, said the bulk of his overtime and extra employee costs stems from a shortage of nurses. Oak Forest`s additions were caused by underestimates in the budget, Stroger said.
Stroger, chairman of the Finance Committee, which must approve all transfers, said Daley`s overtime and extra employee costs are caused by hiring law clerks to do research while they are studying for the bar and by hiring prosecutors through the overtime and part-time accounts until a regularly funded position opens up.
Richard O`Shea, head of maintenance and operations, said his overtime costs were the result of remodeling at County Jail to alleviate overcrowding as well as asbestos removal in county offices.
