#COOK COUNT RUN HOW TO#
I wrote recently about how the two brawled over a new contract for 3,500 guards and related personnel represented by the Teamsters union, with Dart charging that Preckwinkle's negotiators failed to get the cutbacks in expensive overtime that he wanted, and Preckwinkle's people pointing the finger right back at alleged management failures by the sheriff.Īfter getting dinged on the pop tax, Preckwinkle stopped by Crain's to chat with our editorial board about how to fill a resulting $200 million hole in the county's fiscal 2019 budget, and she left behind a little time bomb: a chart detailing a slow, steady and significant reduction in the jail population, even as the number of personnel in the sheriff's Department of Corrections has continued to rise. Sheriff Tom Dart and Preckwinkle have been knocking heads for years. Each runs their own agency, proposes their own budget and has a certain amount of clout on the board in getting that budget approved, whatever the president wants.
Now, the first thing you have to understand about Cook County government is that, while there is one board presided over by Preckwinkle, there also are separately elected officials such as county assessor, clerk, circuit court clerk and sheriff. This leads to the story of Cook County Jail, thousands of well-paid jail guards and why the number of guards and related personnel has increased almost 10 percent in recent years even as the number of inmates they guard has dropped 30 percent. But nothing in life is quite as simple as the recent media narrative would suggest. In this autumn's political drama, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is the designated heavy, the woman who ignored public opinion and put the proverbial straw on the camel's back with her now-defunct tax on soda pop and other sweetened beverages.
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