DuPage chairman candidates look at ethics, transparency

Four high-powered Republicans are seeking their party's nomination for DuPage County Board chairman in the Feb. 2 primary election.

The field features state Sen. Dan Cronin of Elmhurst; Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso; DuPage County Board member Debra Olson of Wheaton; and state Sen. Carole Pankau of Itasca.

The winner will advance to the November election to face Democrat Carole A. Cheney, 48, an attorney from Aurora who has never held elected office and is running unopposed in her party's primary.

All the candidates are hoping to replace Bob Schillerstrom, a Naperville Republican who is stepping down after 12 years in the chairman's post.

The Daily Herald asked the candidates several questions related to the primary. Today is the fourth installment of a five-part series looking at what the hopefuls in the contested GOP race for chairman had to say.

Q. What is your position on the county's efforts to enact ethics and transparency reforms? Pankau: I believe the Collins Commission Report should serve as a guide for all elected officials and candidates in this state. Therefore, in this campaign, I am committed to following the guidelines that were laid out in the Collins Commission Report. I think all government needs to work very diligently to restore the public's trust. DuPage County is in a position to take a lead on ethics and transparency reforms. The DuPage County auditor's office, with its "Checkbook Online," is used as an example across our state of where government transparency should be. With its strong commitment to transparency, DuPage should also serve as a model for ethics reforms at the local government level.While I have reviewed the proposal that was introduced in August, the attention to detail of this proposal is severely lacking, and as far as I have heard, there has been no follow-up on this proposal four months later. Under the Blagojevich administration we had six years of government by press release, we do not need that in DuPage County. In regard to the proposal that was sent out via news release, there are several major issues I see: there are no enforcement mechanisms in place to compel a candidate or elected official to comply with the ordinances; there is no "Millionaire Provision;" and there are no provisions for candidates who are not currently incumbents. When DuPage decides to take a lead role on a major issue, we must pay attention to detail in order to serve as a model for other counties and our state. The proposed changes to the ethics ordinance is a good first step, but as I learned as a county board member, the devil is always in the details. We must work out the details in order to restore the public's trust in government. I will, in the first 100 days of my tenure as county board chairman, work to fix the current proposal, and enact real, effective and efficient ethics reforms for DuPage County. Cronin: The DuPage County Board adopted an ethics ordinance in 2004 to articulate ethical guidelines for county employees, board members and elected officials. The ordinance created an ethics commission as well as the position of ethics officer to enforce guidelines regarding gifts, political activities, contracts, employment conflicts and disclosure rules. At a time when voters are highly cynical about the behavior of elected officials and government employees, this ordinance was a symbolic first step toward assuring county taxpayers DuPage County government will operate in an ethical and honest manner. As chairman, I will ensure we continue to review this ordinance and enhance some of its features as necessary. Voters are most concerned about the relationship between campaign contributions and government vendors as well as any perquisites received by public employees in return for favorable treatment. While the ordinance does touch upon some of these issues, the county board may need to add more teeth to its components and guarantee all county employees are fully complying with both the letter and the spirit of the ordinance. I support a gift ban and wholeheartedly endorse full, complete and "real-time" disclosure of campaign contributions.Transparency in government is an overriding concern of taxpayers. The DuPage County auditor continues to receive accolades for recently availing residents the chance to review each expenditure of county tax dollars, and I add my congratulations and support for this effort. Yet some concerns exist and have been raised recently by the Civic Federation. As chairman, I will address these issues, such as the development of a performance measuring system to assess the efficacy of each funding program under county government. The National Advisory Council on State and Local Budgeting recommends units of government establish clear objectives for each program and regularly evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the program. As chairman, I will work with the board to establish this measuring system and set benchmarks that will accurately ascertain whether publicly funded programs have achieved their objectives in an economical manner.Other steps the board can take toward more transparency would include information about grant data as well as a full accounting of all personnel costs in its annual budget.One major hurdle to complete county transparency is the outdated main frame computer and software currently used by the county. While a $10 million upgrade is a large expenditure, especially at this point in time, the county needs to incorporate this expenditure in its planning and move forward on this upgrade as soon as feasible. DuPage County must continue to improve its transparency efforts to fully inform taxpayers about the responsible use of their dollars and set forth very clear expectations of the results of those expenditures.As a state senator, I have been actively involved in ethics reform on the state level. I supported recent legislation to strengthen ethics laws for Illinois elected officials; unfortunately, many reforms were sidelined by the Democratic leadership in Springfield. Following the debacle with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, I sponsored legislation to allow voters to recall any elected official at any time. Illinoisans are rightly embarrassed at the spectacle that is Illinois politics and deserve better representation at every level. Grasso: These issues have not been ignored and have been provided for at the county level. Thankfully, we are not Springfield. The county has an ethics ordinance, an ethics commission that is budgeted for (apparently adequately) and meets regularly; there is no culture of corruption here that is systemic to Springfield. We should be vigilant on these subjects, but there is no great need at the county level to use additional resources. Any call for ethics "reform" seems more based upon politics than fact based at the county level. The county would have no enforcement authority or legislative jurisdiction over ethics issues. Any action the county takes would be advisory. If there was a true ethics issue, then the state's attorney should be involved.I think ethics are a gut-check; pay-to-play is wrong, we know that intuitively and no amount of additional rules will prevent it if that is what an elected official wants as his/her legacy. Olson: I believe it is incumbent upon all elected officials to be leaders in ethics and transparency standards. Of course, someone who intends to subvert the law will find a way to do it. But that doesn't preclude the need for substantive ethics policies that demonstrate the political will to hold self and others accountable to the public trust. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as the saying goes. So while Cook County and the state of Illinois are rampant with pay-to-play and patronage, DuPage has held a higher standard, and is working to do better. With the culture of corruption in Illinois, weak and meaningless ethics reforms are only a sign of unwillingness to break the cycle. We must not allow the Springfield culture to infiltrate DuPage County.I have been a leader in ethics and transparency reforms in DuPage County and as chairman will continue to strengthen our policies and welcome the input of others. When first elected to the county board, I was one of two board members to vote against rule changes that would have had the potential to give DuPage County government home-rule status without public referendum, as the state statute requires. There was nothing ethical or transparent about that attempted backdoor power grab. Within a short time I proposed a package of 16 good government reforms, put together a coalition of board members, and passed 14 of the 16 measures. These resulted in significant changes to county government, including a reversal of incendiary rules provisions, long-term budgeting, greater accountability for the tax dollars we spend, and paved the way for the transparency initiatives that have made DuPage a model for other counties. I currently have a proposal before the county board finance committee that raises our standards even higher. Together with changes proposed by the transparency committee, these amendments will limit campaign contributions from county vendors, add further Whistleblower protections and mechanisms, and require stricter reporting requirements for gifts and meals received by elected officials and employees from county vendors. However, ethics changes are not enough. We must also have substantive revisions to our procurement (purchasing) policies. In order to improve purchasing methods to increase the number of vendors bidding on projects, I will also be calling for all bidding of contracts to be done online, as well as modifications to development of bid specifications. This will help avoid contracts getting intentionally "steered" toward a particular vendor.And I believe we need to be more restrictive in our professional services contracts, doing much more to reduce and limit the number of no-bid and sole-source contracts. I have also proposed state legislation that would allow counties to set more stringent ethics and campaign finance rules for county candidates and elected officials beyond the limits we can set in our current ethics ordinance. For greater transparency, we also need to upgrade and improve our IT infrastructure. Our antiquated IT system prevents us from more sophisticated transparency and accountability initiatives such as systemwide performance measures, searchable databases and more extensive financial reporting.False9631278Gary Grasso False