Forget those recent reports of an embarrassing $16 million deficit for the Cook County Forest Preserve District at the end of 1999. As the Tribune disclosed Monday, the losses appear to have leaped higher, perhaps to $20 million by the end of 2000. That’s $20 million in just a $145 million budget.
This as the head of the county board, whose 17 members run both county government and the forest preserves, asserts in a letter to the Tribune: “There is no `bad financial management’ in county government.”
Wednesday will be the county board’s first meeting since its members learned that while they were enjoying nappy time, the patronage-fat forest preserve district drowned in red ink. If only the district was as bad as it gets. In truth it is just one among many examples of why county officials must rapidly embrace privatization–and deeply slash their bloated workforce.
The first step toward fixing the forest preserves is easy. The district now runs its own obsolete finance system. It would take just days to enact what’s called an intergovernmental agreement to hand that function to county government’s more skilled financial officers.
Next come the questions that tuned-in commissioners Michael Quigley and Gregg Goslin are asking: Why shouldn’t costly golf course operations be turned over to professional managers? How do collar-county districts earn so much money from corporate sponsorships of their events and facilities? Why does the district have its own police force? Why hasn’t the district, like its city counterpart, started a non-profit foundation to raise money from companies or private foundations? What about new sources of revenue, like the popular dog exercise areas in Lake County? Why not privatize waste disposal, recycling and information technology?
And one more question: How did the Chicago Park District cut one-third of its workforce in recent years?
Cook County has some good administrators in its departments. But they must work around board members’ decisions that smell of old-school politics. And–to the frustration of the many hard-working employees–the good managers also must find make-work for all the hacks and relatives whose connections somehow entitle them to squat on the payroll–often for decades.
County government’s most embarrassing problems, specifically its failure to sharply rein in personnel costs, lie squarely at the feet of Board President John Stroger and Finance Chairman John Daley. They’re the leaders of what Stroger likes to call “the team.” By that he really means the docile board members who reliably vote for obese county and forest preserve budgets, and have yet to meet a new tax they didn’t love.
“The team” had better decide fast whether sticking with Stroger and Daley is worth the political risk. Not to mention the embarrassment of a forest preserve deficit that ballooned by the millions while, as many board members now sheepishly admit, they were clueless.
