County monitor sees progress - but not enough - on political hiring

Her first three months as Cook County's watchdog against political hiring have been an eye-opening experience for Mary Robinson.

Her mission is to help the county get to a point where she and her office are no longer needed, but she's quickly seen that the county's entrenched tradition of patronage hiring is not easily dislodged. In an interview with the Daily Herald editorial board Tuesday, she said the problem is no one county official's doing, but the effect of a system in which too few people take seriously the call to change the way hiring is done.

For example, to get around the court-ordered Shakman ban on political hiring, she's found, some county supervisors have gone so far as to adapt job descriptions to the unique backgrounds of favored job applicants or coached applicants in how to answer difficult interview questions - a practice monitors have identified when they've seen applicants responding to an interview question with an answer that is correct not for that question but for another in the interview.

"It's not uncommon to hear county employees guffaw when they hear Shakman -- 'Oh yeah!' -- as if nothing's being done," Robinson said. "It feels like the culture that political hiring is the norm ... There's a lot of not taking it seriously and some intentional perversion (of the rules)."

Robinson assumed the court-appointed position as compliance monitor in March following the resignation of Julia Nowicki, who left after two years, calling the county's slow pace of compliance "unfathomable."

Robinson said she will recommend ways to change the county's patronage culture when she issues her first report at the end of this month.

The Shakman decree is a federal court order that bans various Cook County agencies and the city of Chicago from letting politics influence hiring and firing. About 500 management positions in the county are exempt from the decree out of 14,000 jobs.

Despite the pervasive cynicism, Robinson sees signs of progress -- particularly in the county health system, which was recently made independent from the county board. CEO William Foley, she said, plans to eliminate exemptions and extend the patronage ban to all 160 previously political positions in the health system.

Keeping the health system independent will be a critical component of a system that ultimately brings the county into compliance with Shakman, she said.

Cook County also has purchased electronic software to create an online application system that can help combat political hiring, but to make it effective, the county must make its job descriptions more uniform, Robinson said, so supervisors can't easily rig an opening to fit a particular candidate.

Currently, the county, the city of Chicago and the sheriff's department have compliance monitors like Robinson to watchdog hiring and firing. Other elected county offices, like the clerk, court clerk, treasurer and recorder, will get similar guardians when they reach agreement in court on how to proceed, Shakman attorney Roger Fross said.

Robinson, the former administrator of the state disciplinary commission for attorneys, is nearing agreement with the county on a new hiring plan.

Ultimately, she said, voters must elect candidates who are committed to ending the dependence on patronage workers to keep them in office.

"It's really up to the voters," Robinson said. "If voters want to pay attention, they can change this."