Stroger Uses Jobs to Reward Friends, Punish Foes

by Will Compernolle A court-appointed watchdog group claims Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is “using the county payroll to reward those who backed his failed re-election effort and punish those who did not,” the Chicago Tribune reports. Stroger’s staff has lowered minimum job qualifications, pretended not to know job applicants when they did, tried to invoke...

by Will Compernolle

A court-appointed watchdog group claims Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is “using the county payroll to reward those who backed his failed re-election effort and punish those who did not,” the Chicago Tribune reports.

Stroger’s staff has lowered minimum job qualifications, pretended not to know job applicants when they did, tried to invoke emergency hiring powers and fed job test answers to applicants with political sponsors.

“The goal is to hire certain people, and they will take whatever steps are needed to get to that goals,” monitor Mary Robinson said in an interview. That attitude has worsened in some quarters since Stroger finished last in a four-way Democratic primary in February, even as improvements were made in other areas, she said.

Eugene Mullins, Stroger’s spokesman, responded to the charges saying all of the firings were from failure to live up to expectations and all those hired were qualified for the work they were doing. One person specifically mentioned in the report was Carla Oglesby, Stroger’s former campaign spokeswoman. Oglesby was given a $120,000-a-year chief of staff post but was suspended when it was discovered that she authorized a $25,000 contract to her own public relations firm. “But Stroger quickly put her back on the payroll, even as an inspector general’s investigation into contracts she authorized continues.”

The findings in this report show what transparency can reveal when it comes to corrupt and inefficient hiring. Unfortunately, it took a court-ordered FBI probe for this information to become public. Instead, Cook County should aim to be transparent so such hiring and firing are never even considered.

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