Cook County must restrict spending

To say we are disappointed the Cook County Board failed to override President Todd Stroger's veto of a hiring freeze would be an understatement.

Chicago Commissioners Edwin Reyes and Robert Steele backed away, suggesting the board take a less confrontational tack with Stroger, who lost his re-election bid in the primary.

To the contrary, we believe Stroger's reprehensible and irresponsible hiring and salary hikes in the four months since the primary demonstrate that confrontation is the order of the day. In fact, we previously have called on Stroger to step down immediately and we renew that call today.

We now call upon commissioners to take their fiduciary duties to the taxpayers to heart more than ever. If this board does nothing else but pore over hiring and spending at all Cook County departments for the next nearly eight months remaining in Stroger's term, that will be enough. Nothing is more important in this financially challenging time.

Recent revelations make it so.

The latest is that Stroger's office granted several contracts using federal census funds that are just under the $25,000 threshold requiring board approval. Stroger has hired seven new workers this year at a cost of $900,000. Five of them were hired after he lost the primary and six are being paid more than $100,000 annually. Stroger also granted 10 raises totaling $175,000, bringing the overall cost to taxpayers to more than $1 million.

That is simply outrageous action in the wake of his loss and an entire term filled with turmoil and outcry over his sales tax hike and other missteps.

Don't take our word for it. Stroger's former political ally John Daley, chair of the county's finance committee, called the hiring and salary increases "very strange" and "ridiculous."

Commissioner Earlean Collins suggested the hiring freeze that was set to expire with Stroger's term could prompt a costly court fight. That Stroger would launch a court fight only adds to our ire.

"It's about me," he told commissioners this week. Yes, it is about you and your abuse of taxpayer funds. President Stroger, do you really expect taxpayers to believe all that hiring and salary hiking was needed in this economy?

But now we look to the future. We expect commissioners to ratchet up their monitoring of spending and salary increases. We're pleased to see they plan to ask all department heads to explain their new hires and raises next month. We give Democratic president nominee Toni Preckwinkle credit for pre-general-election honesty for saying this week she likely won't be able to repeal the sales tax hike until at least 2012. But, should she win election, we challenge her to do just that. She must try harder to find efficiencies. Out here in private, taxpayer land, we've all had to find spending cuts in our own budgets, again and again. We expect you to join us.