Cook prez candidate's 'Jeans Days' flap won't fade

Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court Dorothy Brown tried to clear up a controversy over her "Jeans Day" fundraising program Friday, but a news conference she held in her office at the Daley Center in downtown Chicago produced more questions than it answered.

"We are public servants, and this to me is another form of serving," Brown said of the program, which allows the 2,100 employees in her office to "voluntarily" pay a few dollars to wear jeans on "casual Fridays" and other designated occasions, with the money going to charities or "employee morale events" such as an Employee of the Year ceremony and a summer picnic.

Yet Brown and her Chief Financial Officer Wasiu Fashina couldn't agree on exactly how much money the Jeans Days had raised or even how many there actually were in the last year.

Fashina first said it was "more than $40,000," then produced documents showing that in 2009 more than $27,000 had been raised for the picnic, almost $20,000 for the Employee of the Year program and almost $12,000 for two additional charitable causes: the American Heart Association and a fire fund for a court clerk burned out of her home. That added up to more than $59,000 at $2 a donation.

Brown and Fashina said there were 22 regularly scheduled Jeans Days in the clerk's office last year: one the last Friday of each month for the Employee of the Year program, and 10 more for the picnic. There were two more for the heart association and the fire fund. Yet that didn't account for other Jeans Days called independently by departments within the court clerk's office, such as a Hispanic-heritage fundraiser held last August.

Brown allowed that departments can call their own Jeans Days for $3 a person or even $10 for a full week. Fashina insisted they were all approved "by upper management," but they could not say offhand exactly how many had taken place or how much money they raised for what causes.

Brown, who is running in the Democratic primary for Cook County Board president, insisted the news conference pertained only to county business and that she could not answer any political questions.

Brown said Jeans Days had originated under the administration of Aurelia Pucinski and that she had actually ended the practice after taking office in 2000, seeking to instill a more "professional" atmosphere. Yet employees "begged" her to reinstate them, and she began the practice anew in 2004, she said.

She insisted the funds - often collected as cash in circulated envelopes - was "properly controlled" and "used only for the cause for which they were collected," with jeans-clad employees typically wearing a sticker to identify the charity and that they had the right to dress down.

The money was kept separate from court business, she said.

"It doesn't go through our cashiering system," Brown said.

"It's not part of the county audit," Fashina added.

It was also informal and not registered as a charitable organization.

"We're just the intermediary," Brown said. "This is not a charity. We have charitable organizations we give money to."

Brown produced several employees backing the program.

"I know that the money goes to a good cause," said Freida Davis.

"Jeans Day is a force for good," added Mary Tripoli. "There are so many other more important things to be concerned with."

Yet Brown said that, if elected president of the county board, she would not attempt to expand it countywide, explaining, "The entire county would be harder to control."

Two of Brown's primary rivals - Chicago Alderman Toni Preckwinkle and incumbent President Todd Stroger - called on Thursday for a full accounting of the clerk's Jeans Days program, but declined to comment on Brown's presentation Friday. Candidate Terrence O'Brien, president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, also declined to comment Friday, as he had previously.

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<li><a href="/story/?id=352789">Brown lashed over employee 'jeans tax' <span class="date">[01/20/10]</span></a></li>

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