Richard Martwick, the Cook County school superintendent who spent more than two decades in office despite a lingering war with politicians, suburban school officials, and state bureaucrats, has resigned.
The resignation, contained in a letter to Cook County Board President Richard Phelan and to the County Board, offers no explanation for what Martwick calls his ”retirement,” effective next month.
News of his departure was met with undisguised glee by local school officials, who battled Martwick over what they said was the unnecessary demands he placed on school districts and the unyielding manner in which he ran the office, which oversees all Cook County schools outside Chicago.
”I`m glad that he has resigned,” said Phelan, who rarely cloaked his disdain for Martwick or his office. In fact, Phelan ran for the County Board presidency in 1990 on a platform that called for the elimination of Martwick`s job.
The General Assembly subsequently passed legislation to phase out Martwick`s office in 1995. As a result, he was captain of what amounted to a sinking ship.
His 1992 budget was sliced in half by the County Board, and the office, which largely is administrative in nature, was facing additional cuts this fall in its 1993 budget.
Martwick, who has been reclusive for several years, couldn`t be reached for comment Tuesday. The resignation letter said his departure is effective Sept. 5.
His top aide, Evelyn Johns, said she was unaware of any resignation but declined to comment further.
”This marks a change of administration,” Phelan said. ”I thank him for his years of service.”
Last year, Martwick indicated he was considering retirement when legislation was introduced in Springfield to sweeten his pension benefits. The bill was ultimately bottled up in a committee.
Phelan said he had not talked with Martwick and didn`t know the reason why he chose to step aside. But Phelan added that a search would begin immediately for a successor, who would have to be confirmed by the County Board.
Nonetheless, the office is scheduled to be eliminated in August 1995.
Martwick`s resignation came at a time when he found himself virtually abandoned by his political allies who for years had sheltered him from calls to oust him.
The beginning of the end may have come in 1990, when then-County Board President George Dunne, the longtime county Democratic chairman, decided not to run for re-election.
Dunne often defended Martwick, who has an abrasive character, when few others would. But Martwick`s job security also came in the form of his brother Robert, an attorney and influential Democratic committeeman from the Northwest Side and suburbs.
With Dunne gone and Phelan in office, there were signs for the first time that a political career that began in 1971 was drawing to a close.
The clincher may have come two years ago, when an audit showed that millions of dollars in state school-aid funds were being deposited in non-interest-bearing accounts at a politically connected bank.
State lawmakers resolved all doubt on the office`s future last year, when they approved legislation to eliminate it.
Most functions of the office, which range from reviewing and approving the expenditures of special funds for school-safety projects to testing school bus drivers and offering General Educational Development exams, will be assumed by the Illinois State Board of Education.
Phelan said Tuesday that the county would work to ensure that the GED program, one of the few that won praise for Martwick`s office, wouldn`t be lost.
”We wish him well in his retirement,” State School Supt. Robert Leininger said through a spokeswoman, adding that Leininger was continuing to work toward developing a plan to take over the office`s duties.
Among Leininger`s proposals has been a plan for eliminating the county school superintendent`s office statewide and replacing it with a smaller number of regional offices.
Besides his political sponsors, most of Martwick`s support came from within the office. The criticism, they said, was unwarranted but expected from school officials who didn`t like the watchdog role they played.
In recent months, Martwick`s employees have been highly critical of Phelan and the plan to phase out the office, saying that it had left them with a skeleton staff while not scaling down the functions of the department.
But Martwick never found many sympathizers. Local school officials throughout the suburbs said Martwick made onerous and needless demands on them that served little purpose.
In fact, school officials claimed there were so many delays in getting their life-safety projects approved by Martwick`s office that they went to the General Assembly to get the law changed.
Under the new law, the projects must be considered within 90 days or they go straight to the state board for review.
”There were all kinds of rules and regulations and it took an ungodly amount of time,” said Karl Plank, superintendent of Blue Island Elementary District 130. ”He made the unimportant decisions quite time consuming and important.”
Martwick had some troubles within his office as well. One assistant superintendent once took Martwick to court after he fired her.
The former employee, who won a $95,000 judgment from the county, contended she was fired for not selling enough tickets to Martwick political fundraisers.
Last year, an unidentified employee sent a memo to county officials complaining that they were being pressured to contribute money to a legal defense fund to fight the plan to dissolve the office.
Despite the barrage of criticism, Martwick never lost an election.
”He succeeded, and you can`t quarrel with success,” Dunne said Tuesday. ”The person who holds that job must have a degree in a particular education entity. He had it, so the Democrats endorsed him.”
