{"id":237130,"date":"2010-01-27T01:48:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-27T06:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0120a818c7d1970b"},"modified":"2010-01-27T13:50:22","modified_gmt":"2010-01-27T18:50:22","slug":"daley-claims-strides-in-cleaning-up-hiring-but-critics-voice-doubts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/237130","title":{"rendered":"Daley claims strides in cleaning up hiring, but critics voice doubts"},"content":{"rendered":"

From today’s print edition<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Daley claims strides in cleaning up hiring, but critics voice doubts<\/h2>\n

By Todd Lighty, Tribune reporter<\/p>\n

Mayor Richard Daley’s administration says it has made great strides in
\ncleaning up the city’s corrupt hiring system, but others say it’s a
\nmuddy record of progress that raises lingering doubts about whether
\nCity Hall has embraced reform.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nDaley has said that this year he will seek to end federal court
\ninvolvement in city personnel practices, arguing that it is time to
\ntake off the training wheels and let the city manage its hiring,
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nAt stake is how the city’s 36,000 jobs get filled, how coveted overtime
\nis dished out and how job assignments are made, and whether those
\ndecisions are made free of politics.\n<\/p>\n

<\/br>
\nSince FBI agents raided City Hall in April 2005 and uncovered a massive
\nhiring-fraud scheme anchored in the mayor’s office, Daley has promised
\nreform. The city since August 2005 has paid more than $6.2 million to
\nlawyers and consultants, including $4.2 million to the court monitor,
\nto clean up its hiring.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nBut changing the culture of clout, where for years the fastest route to
\na promotion or city job required working for Daley’s political
\norganization, has proved daunting.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nThe court monitor and investigators have alleged in a string of reports
\nsince last summer that a handful of politically connected truck drivers
\nreceived "disproportionate amounts" of overtime, that the city has been
\nreluctant to discipline workers who violate hiring rules, and that more
\nthan one top Daley aide has deliberately misled investigators looking
\ninto hiring abuses.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nThe Tribune in November also revealed that a stealth budget account has
\nallowed aldermen to put family members, campaign operatives and others
\nwith political connections on yet another taxpayer-funded payroll.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nMichael Shakman, who filed suit 40 years ago to end the city’s practice
\nof trading jobs for political support, said Daley has much more work to
\ndo.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\n"I am not looking for a personal apology from the mayor, but true
\nhiring reform won’t come until the middle managers believe the mayor is
\ncommitted," Shakman said.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nA recent survey found that Chicago city workers are less likely to
\nreport job-related misconduct, including hiring abuses, than their
\ncounterparts elsewhere in the U.S., largely because they don’t believe
\nthe problem will be fixed and they fear retaliation from bosses.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nCity Hall said it has made meaningful progress under Daley’s leadership.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nThe mayor revamped the personnel department and created a new ethics
\noffice, the Office of Compliance, to take over the duties of the
\ncourt-appointed hiring monitor.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nDaley also has issued executive orders prohibiting politics in hiring
\ndecisions, requiring employees to report misconduct to the inspector
\ngeneral’s office and forbidding retaliation against whistle-blowers.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\n"The mayor has taken a number of aggressive steps to demonstrate his
\ncommitment to creating a hiring process that is free from political
\nconsiderations," said Jenny Hoyle, spokeswoman for the city’s Law
\nDepartment.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nHoyle acknowledged federal court monitor Noelle Brennan’s concerns
\nabout the mayor’s Office of Compliance, led by Anthony Boswell, and
\nhiring violations involving contract workers.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\n"We recognize that the monitor’s concerns will have to be addressed
\nbefore we can advise the court that we are in substantial compliance,
\nand we will continue to work with the monitor to address her concerns,"
\nHoyle said.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nAs part of a 2007 settlement between the city and Shakman, Chicago
\nagreed to pay out $12 million to victims of past political
\ndiscrimination and to develop a new hiring plan. That plan, not yet
\ncompleted, would set in place the process by which new employees get
\nhired, based on merit or by lottery and not on whom they know
\npolitically.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nBrennan, who was appointed monitor four months after the FBI raid,
\ndeclined to comment for this report. In July, she had said the Daley
\nadministration made progress cleaning up hiring, but she has since
\ntaken a tougher stance.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nIn a December report filed in federal court, Brennan outlined her
\nconcerns about Boswell, a lawyer and an experienced corporate
\ncompliance official. She said Boswell’s office violated hiring
\nregulations and misled her about efforts to deal with hiring abuses.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nBrennan’s criticisms are particularly significant because Daley created
\nthat office in 2007 to take over her oversight duties once the
\ndecades-long legal case officially ends.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nShakman also questioned the compliance office’s independence and said
\nBoswell has a tendency to "downplay significant problems" inside City
\nHall. "I’ve lost confidence in Boswell," Shakman said.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nBoswell has said his staff acts independently of the mayor’s office,
\nnoting that his office uncovered hundreds of contract workers who were
\nfunctioning as city employees in apparent violation of hiring rules,
\nincluding one "temporary worker" employed by the Department of Finance
\nfor the last 20 years.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nBoswell and his top deputy have other challenges as well. Inspector
\nGeneral Joseph Ferguson this month urged Daley to give both men lengthy
\nsuspensions for allegedly mishandling a sexual harassment complaint
\nfiled with their office. Ferguson, a former federal prosecutor, is to
\ngive the court his own report assessing hiring as soon as Thursday.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nDaley, who says he is eager to get the court out of city hiring, is
\nconsidering stripping the Office of Compliance of any role in hiring
\noversight and giving that authority to the inspector general, according
\nto sources in city government.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nU.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen, who oversees the case and appointed
\nBrennan monitor, ultimately must determine if City Hall can be trusted.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nA truck driver in Streets and Sanitation, who asked not to be
\nidentified because he feared retaliation, said he and fellow drivers
\nworry about an increase in political favoritism when court oversight
\nends. The trucker said there would be a period of uncertainty.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\n"Then," he said, "it would be business as usual"
<\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From today’s print edition: Daley claims strides in cleaning up hiring, but critics voice doubts By Todd Lighty, Tribune reporter Mayor Richard Daley’s administration says it has made great strides in cleaning up the city’s corrupt hiring system, but others say it’s a muddy record of progress that raises lingering doubts about whether City Hall […]<\/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-237130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237130","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=237130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}