Aldermen balk at Brennan's fees
CITY HALL | Say city can't afford $3.8 million for hiring monitor
Federal hiring monitor Noelle Brennan has billed Chicago taxpayers for $3.8 million through January --bringing the running tab for the city hiring scandal to $18.1 million -- prompting aldermen to demand an end to the monitor's "full-time gig."
In March, Brennan issued another blistering report alleging continued personnel abuses -- some in the Department of Streets and Sanitation, where former commissioner and Hispanic Democratic Organization chieftain Al Sanchez was convicted of rigging hiring and promotions to benefit HDO members.
(Keith Hale/Sun-Times)
Brennan's claim that the city's compliance efforts had "notably decreased" prompted a "discouraged" U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen to warn that court oversight over city hiring would continue through this year and might not end before his 2010 retirement.
On Wednesday, aldermen who have chafed under Brennan's iron-fisted control seized upon the $3.8 million in fees paid to the monitor through January to demand court relief from fees they said taxpayers can ill afford.
"As long as we call her a monitor, her job is endless. . . . Let's face it. This is a full-time gig for her," said Ald. Pat O'Connor (40th), Mayor Daley's unofficial City Council floor leader.
"In these economic times, it would be smart for the corporation counsel to talk to the judge and see if we can cap these expenditures at some point."
O'Connor insisted that the city hiring process has been dramatically revamped to prevent the kind of abuses that culminated in the 2006 conviction of Daley's former patronage chief.
But, he said: "There's a human element. There's an interview or a test. You can always say it could be done a different way. But a different way doesn't mean it was wrong the first time or it was an abuse."
Ald. Bernard Stone (50th), whose son got a $75,000 settlement from Brennan, said there's no way to justify $3.8 million in fees to a hiring monitor at a time when city hiring has ground to a halt.
"What is she monitoring? All we've been doing lately is firing people. If the judge would look at the cost per hire, he'd be shocked," Stone said.
Brennan could not be reached for comment. Last week, she told the Sun-Times Editorial Board that she had gotten nowhere in her push for a clear anti-patronage hiring policy. She also renewed her complaint that the city has yet to punish employees whose names came up in patronage trials.