Preckwinkle halts nonessential Cook Co. contracts

On the eve of her first regular Cook County Board meeting, President Toni Preckwinkle issued her first executive order today, imposing a moratorium on all nonessential capital projects and professional-service contracts.

The order places 96 active projects worth $495 million and 85 planned projects worth another $195 million on the chopping block for possible elimination.

Calling the move “a cornerstone of the much-needed overhaul of county spending strategies,” Preckwinkle said, “This is the first step toward ending waste in Cook County, and it clearly demonstrates our commitment to fiscal responsibility. This is how we are going to institute a new era of accountability in county government.”

The order was light on specifics, and did not target any one project for elimination, but all will be considered for removal or revision as part of Preckwinkle's process of putting together the budget next month for the 2011 fiscal year.

“The purpose of this is to analyze those (projects), and not move forward with the status quo,” said Chief of Staff Kurt Summers Jr.

“What this means is all nonessential projects and professional-service contracts that can be terminated will be terminated,” Preckwinkle said. “We won't spend like the county did in the past. We're creating a process to review, defer, restructure and even eliminate the ill-advised contracts and wasteful spending that marked the previous administration.”

Preckwinkle said the move could save “tens of millions of dollars,” but the opportunity is there to make even larger cuts.

Preckwinkle cited the $120 million renovation of the old Cook County Hospital and the $92 million rehab of the Fantus Clinic as projects that will no doubt go forward, but only after being reassessed and perhaps reconfigured monetarily.

“I'm a big preservationist,” Preckwinkle said of the old County Hospital, a Beaux Arts structure dear to architecture aficionados. “I think it's a beautiful old building, and we're going to save it. The question is only how it makes sense to renovate and reuse it.

“So it's not a question of whether or not we're going to do this,” she added. “It's only a question of how and whether we can do it in a more effective and efficient way.”

Preckwinkle said she expected recent employee raises in the Health & Hospitals System to come up during Tuesday's county board meeting. The raises, approved by the Health & Hospitals governing board, went to six top employees and will be addressed as the matter is sent to the Finance Committee for consideration.