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Tollway audit finds favoritism in hiring

Political connections mattered more than qualifications for some jobs at the Illinois tollway, an audit indicated Monday.

The report centered on people hired in 2003 and 2004,

Illinois State Toll Highway Authority auditors reviewed political hiring at the agency in 2003 and 2004 following a media report in 2009.

Invesigators looked at 42 positions identified by the Sun Times as political hires.

The toll authority has been criticized in the past for employing politically connected people under both Democrat and Republican governors, who have the power to appoint board directors.

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was in office in 2003 and 2004. His ouster in 2009 led to changes in the tollway’s top administrators including a new executive director, chief of staff, chairman and three board members.

Auditors found five of the 42 people had “questionable job qualifications.”

“After reviewing the information included in this audit, we learned that the people included on this list have been in these positions since 2003 and performing work for the Tollway while protected under collective bargaining agreements,” tollway officials said in an e-mail.

The positions the favored employees held include: customer service representative, equipment operator laborer, purchasing supervisor, senior toll collector and clothing room supervisor.

Auditors also found four people out of the 42 received promotions noncompliant with standard procedures and five were apparently disciplined in an inequitable fashion.

“We took these audit findings seriously and have taken steps to ensure our hiring policies are transparent and aboveboard. We have worked to put in place new management policies to ensure that progressive discipline is followed. We’ve filled some key management positions, including a new Chief of Administration, to ensure that all employees are held accountable to make sure this same situation does not occur again,” tollway officials said.

At an audit committee meeting, tollway Director James Roolf said, “if we’re looking for an engineer, we want to make sure we have an engineer when we hire.”

Overall, serious errors and problems were down from 2010 audits, internal audit manager Ariana Jaupi said.

Other findings included: the tollway need more consistent tracking of contracts awarded to construction companies owned by minorities to ensure they met diversity goals; missing signatures from documents assigning vehicles to staff; instances where construction contractors hired subcontractors without tollway approval; and lapses in guidelines for using credit cards for travel outside of Illinois.

“The important thing is to identify issues and try to correct them,” tollway Chairman Paula Wolff said.