[remote or in-person] Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight

Politics

Monday, Sept. 9, 2024
1:00 p.m. — 3:00 p.m. CDT

121 N LaSalle St Chicago, IL 60602 (Directions)

The Chicago City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Chicago and consists of the Mayor and Aldermen elected from each of the City’s fifty wards.

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Reporting

Edited and summarized by the Chicago - IL Documenters Team

Note-taking by Matthew Warakomski

The Civilian Workers Compensation (CWC) program was formerly handled by the Committee on Finance which allowed for little public oversight. The Department of Finance (DOF) has improved its transparency, but there is still room for improvement.

View notes

Live reporting by Holland Harmon

The DOF has saved the city $30 million since implementing the OIG's recommendations. The OIG reported receiving 4948 intakes in the second quarter which was an increase from 2149 in the first quarter.

H.Noelle

Hi! My name is Holland and I’ll be live-tweeting during today’s Chicago City Council Committee on Ethics & Govt Oversight Meeting. The meeting is set to begin at 1 pm! @CHIdocumenters #CHIdocumenters

12:59 PM Sep 9, 2024 CDT

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The meeting is called to order at 1:11pm by Committee Chair Alderman Matthew Martin. Quorum is established with 10 members present.

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James McCoy opens public comment expressing concerns that Black people always being treated as second class citizens in Chicago

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Second up is Jessica Jackson. She says this is an ethics meeting but it sounds like the City is just concerned about money. Following the previous committee meeting on Public Safety regarding the money from shot spotter being allocated elsewhere. She says “What ethics?”

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Third for public comment is the infamous George Blakemore. He says the big picture is the immigrants. “As black people the, government hates us”. Admonishes to look in the mirror and love each other. “Reprogram ourselves from the plantation.”

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Fourth up is Tajuan Simms. Asks, “Is it ethical to treat Black Americans the way they’re treated in this city?” Says the City Council is the most unethical group in the city.

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He says that Alderwoman Maria Hadden is the most unethical as she only works to build her “Gayberhood”, leaving everyone else behind. Says Blacks are “invisible”.

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Fifth up is Zoe Leigh. Says her mother has always taught her to “go to the top to get what you need”. But, fighting the government is challenging. She’s went through aldermen, 3 mayors, inspector general, and attorney general regarding the City stealing Black people’s property.

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“Black people have to go through 15 steps when a white person has to go through no steps.” She says she technically owns the city of Chicago right now because they are in a $1 billion dollar deficit and her mother’s lawsuit is $3 billion and they are not settling.

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Last up for public comment is Theresa TJ Hughes also questions “what is Ethics?” Speaks to finally getting Procurement Officer Aileen Velasquez out and replacing her with someone who isn’t qualified.

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The Rule 45 report is motioned and approved as sent out to committee

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Next up is Inspector General Deborah Witzburg with the report on the Audit of Department of Finance’s Civilian Workers Compensation Program Administration

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The scope of the project was to ensure transparency of the program and that the program is meeting the recommended improvements.

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Witzburg reports that the DOF has implemented substantial changes to the program in categories: fraud risk, data analytics, benefit delivery, etc. and is now publishing reports publicly as recommended from the corrective action report of the audit.

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Conclusion is that the administration represents a critical improvement. DOF has increased transparency, but there are still improvements to be made.

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City Comptroller Chases Rehwinkel reports that since the transfer of the program to DOF from the legislation. He is pleased to report that significant progress has been made and the city has saved $30 million since implementing these improvements.

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Director of Workers Comp Program, Darrell Mathis presents on execution of strategy. He says DOF is now using a third party administrator, Gallagher Basset, to oversee and manage the program in which he is the designee.

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DOF has made significant improvement in the area of resolution of claims and other key metrics and saved $9.7 mil saved in 2023 with a total saved $31.7 million in the past 5 years.

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Alderman Scott Waguespack commends Director Mathis for he and his staff’s great work for the finances saved and would like to know when the next annual report is coming out.

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Comptroller Rehwinkel says he’s working to have September be the standard when the report is published so it can be used for budgeting purposes.

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Alderman Waguespack says he hopes to continue seeing the trends of savings of millions.

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Inspector General says as they continue to improve controls and investigating misconduct where reported that they will be better equipped to reduce fraud within the Workers Comp program.

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Director Mathis says fraud is subjective. Because what one might deem as fraud might be really just be question to a physician’s practices.

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Alderman Bennett Lawson questions if our open WC claims comparable to other peer cities? Director Mathis says our numbers are unfortunately higher at 1735.

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Last order of biz is the Office of Inspector General Quarterly Report from Second Quarter of 2024 presented by Inspector General Deborah Witzburg.

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Says that here in city government the rules should apply to everyone. There are no city actors too big to be accountable.

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Received 4948 intakes in the second quarter which was a pretty big rise from first quarter which was less than 2000.

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OIG has 201 active misconduct investigations, which is up from 92 the quarter before. 156 city employee misconduct investigations and 18 city official investigations.

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Recommended discipline in a high ranking fire official who attended an inspection of one of their friends property in their uniform.

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OIG recommended termination for a CHA employee who defrauded the CHA program.

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OIG recommended the termination for a high ranking CPD official who failed to cooperate with an OIG investigation who was subsequently let go.

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OIG recommended termination for a deputy mayor and another employee who consumed alcohol on City time and was overheard saying “I’m too drunk to do interviews” and proceeded to interview other deputy mayors. They both were fired.

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An excess fund contribution to the Board of Education was returned to donor after it was deemed unethical by OIG.

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OIG recommended the reopening of several COPA disciplinary cases that were closed too soon. COPA declined all of them.

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OIG issued an advisory to mayors office regarding CPD employees affiliation with Extremist groups. Recommended mayors office implement a task force to eliminate any employees with Extremist group affiliation but the Mayor’s group declined.

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Sent DOF a notification where several City employees were simultaneously receiving a paycheck and a disability check. DOF committed to implementing various recommendations to help eliminate this.

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OIG sent a notification to the Board of Ethics regarding City workers sending official business information via their personal email rather than their City-issued emails. There is a plan in place to retrain all staff on correct protocol for city business and info sharing.

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IG Witzburg says that all responses received from Mayor’s Offices, COPA and other administrations are published on OIG’s website as received.

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Alderman Bennett Lawson questions COPA’s timeliness initiative and wonders if it’s just a way to “make cases go away.”

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Ald Taliaferro asks if OIG is running into any constitutional issues with CPD employees having the 1st amendment right to join these extremist groups? Witzburg denotes the City is not addressing these policy issues in any way as compared to our peer cities.

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The Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight meeting is adjourned at 2:48pm.

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Agency Information

Chicago City Council

chicityclerkelms.chicago.gov

(312) 744-3166

@ChiCouncil

See Documenters reporting

The Chicago City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Chicago and consists of the Mayor and Aldermen elected from each of the City’s fifty wards. Source

If you attend a meeting in person, be prepared to go through a security checkpoint and show photo ID.

Meetings are also livestreamed at https://www.chicityclerk.com/.

At this link, scroll down to “Meeting Notices.” Look for “Watch now” and click on the link with the meeting title to go to a livestream page. If you don’t see a link for the meeting, you may be early or the meeting may be starting late. Wait a few moments and try refreshing your Internet tab.

Recordings of past City Council meetings may be found here: https://vimeo.com/user100351763/videos/sort:date.

See also: “What to Expect at a Meeting of Chicago’s City Council” via the Better Government Association.

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