{"id":217421,"date":"2010-01-22T10:53:23","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T15:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0120a7fd48dc970b"},"modified":"2010-01-22T18:21:55","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T23:21:55","slug":"brown-provides-records-tries-to-move-past-jeans-day-flap-in-circuit-clerks-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/217421","title":{"rendered":"Brown provides records, tries to move past ‘Jeans Day’ flap in circuit clerk’s office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Hal Dardick<\/em> at 9:54 a.m.; last updated at 2:31 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Democratic Cook County Board president candidate Dorothy Brown today tried to move past an employee "jeans day" controversy that’s dogging her campaign by providing records she said shows the money was accounted for.<\/p>\n

Brown, the county circuit court clerk, said the $2 or $3 that employees paid to wear jeans on some Fridays has gone to charities including the American Heart Association, a Hurricane Katrina victims fund and a Pakistan earthquake victims fund.<\/p>\n

"It is unfortunate that this innocent practice that helps so many causes is being subverted and maligned by some members of the media," said Brown at a lengthy news conference. (You can read her documents by clicking here<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

Questions about jeans day follow previous stories about Brown raising money for pet causes from workers in her office, which
\nhas more than 2,100 employees. She’s also raised campaign money through her employees and they’ve been asked to contribute to gifts for her.\n<\/p>\n

Today, Brown’s staff acknowledged that there’s no comprehensive accounting of the jeans day cash contributions that reach the tens of thousands of dollars each year. She said the office tries to verify that the number of permission stickers issued equals the number of contributions. Employees also are supposed to write their names on envelopes when they contribute for jeans day, she said. The comptroller in her office tracks the money, Brown added.<\/p>\n

According to documents Brown\u2019s staff provided, nearly $23,000 was spent last year from the employee appreciation fund, accumulated with jeans days\u2019 contributions, to pay for an the annual appreciation dinner held at a union hall. She provided an overall accounting, canceled checks and bank account statements.
<\/br>
<\/br>More than $29,000 was spent on an annual picnic. Expenses included more than $13,000 spent on raffle tickets and prizes, and more than $9,000 on \u201csr. staff game supplies.\u201d
<\/br>
<\/br>She also provided checks indicating $11,814 was donated to charitable causes, including money to help employee Marie Norred after a fire at her home and $8,961 for the American Hearth Association.
<\/br>
<\/br>But she conceded she could not produce records for other jeans days that are approved for various departments within her office. Brown said at least 22 jeans days were held last year.<\/p>\n

Brown said she discontinued jeans days when taking office in the late 1990s, but employees "begged" her to bring it back. She said she did so in 2004.<\/p>\n

The news conference came after\u00a0news stories<\/a> this week about the jeans day events. For years, employees have complained about the practice. A new Tribune poll<\/a> showed Brown in second place in the Democratic primary, trailing Toni Preckwinkle, the 4th Ward alderman. Brown was in first place in a December poll.
<\/br><\/p>\n

Brown recently told the Tribune that all the money
\ncollected either goes to charities or into a fund that pays for an
\nannual employee appreciation awards ceremony.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a voluntary
\nthing,\u201d said Brown, noting the jeans practice is not held every Friday.
\n\u201cIf they want to do it, fine, because blue jeans is not our attire, and
\nyou have to have on a tag saying I\u2019m wearing blue jeans because…But
\nthey want to wear blue jeans and not pay \u2014 is that what it is?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

Coughing up cash for jeans days, however, isn’t the only example of
\nBrown raising money for pet causes from workers in her office, which
\nhas more than 2,100 employees.<\/p>\n

Brown has raised tens of thousands of dollars from employees for her Friends of Dorothy Brown campaign fund.<\/p>\n

In
\naddition, many top-level employees have helped organize annual birthday
\nparties that double as fundraisers. Brown has accepted cash gifts and
\nother presents from employees at those birthday parties and on
\nChristmas \u2014 a practice she halted after the Tribune asked her about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe
\nstories that come out of that office are in some ways little ones, but
\nthey just keep coming,\u201d said Cindi Canary, executive director of the
\nIllinois Campaign for Political Reform.<\/p>\n

Such practices were the
\nprovince of old-school politicians. During his federal corruption
\ntrial, testimony showed former Gov. George Ryan got thousands of
\ndollars from employees for years as Christmas gifts. City Hall workers
\nalso were asked to voluntarily contribute to annual gifts for Mayor
\nRichard Daley, the Tribune reported in December 2006.<\/p>\n

In Brown’s
\noffice, current and former employees told the Tribune that jeans days
\nare usually held once a month, and it costs either $2 or $3 to wear
\njeans. Once a year, they can pay $10 for an entire week — or $3 for a
\nsingle day during that week — if they show up with jeans on and had
\nnot paid in advance, the employees said.
<\/br><\/p>\n

They also said wearing
\nthe explanatory tags, which they identified as stickers placed on the
\njeans, was not mandatory until last week \u2014 after reporters started
\nasking about the practice.<\/p>\n

Brown campaign spokesman Toure Muhammad
\nsaid the campaign was assembling records of exactly where the money
\nraised through jeans days went, adding that it would take some time to
\ndo so.
<\/br><\/p>\n

\u201cThat really is the question,\u201d Canary said when asked if
\nthose records should be readily accessible. \u201cShe is the director of
\nthat office, so she can put policies into place as to her employees,
\nbut when you are charging them money, you have to have some
\naccountability and transparency in place as to where they money is
\ngoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also running in the Feb. 2 board president Democratic primary are Terrence O\u2019Brien, president of the
\nMetropolitan Water Reclamation District and Board President Todd Stroger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Hal Dardick at 9:54 a.m.; last updated at 2:31 p.m. Democratic Cook County Board president candidate Dorothy Brown today tried to move past an employee "jeans day" controversy that’s dogging her campaign by providing records she said shows the money was accounted for. Brown, the county circuit court clerk, said the $2 or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}