Environment commissioner would accept 1 day suspension for alleged hiring abuses

Mayor Daley’s environment commissioner said today she would accept a one-day suspension for alleged hiring abuses involving contract employees.

The inspector general’s office recommended the one-day suspension for Environment Commissioner Suzanne Malec-Mckenna — and the firing of one of her deputies — in a report to the federal judge overseeing the long-running Shakman case.

The deputy was accused of lying to investigators. Malec-McKenna was faulted for failing to adequately supervise the wayward deputy.

Today, Malec-McKenna refused to say whether the deputy would be fired. But, she accepted the one-day suspension and said it would be tacked on to the 24 furlough days non-union employees have been ordered to take to help balance the city’s 2010 budget.

“If that’s the recommendation, I’ll take the recommendation,” Malec-McKenna said, before joining Mayor Daley at a Chinatown news conference called to unveil plans to expand winter heating assistance services.

“We’re a great department. We made some mistakes. We’re improving ‘em and we’re moving forward. …We did everything we needed to do to fix the situation. We’ve worked really hard with [the Office of] Compliance in order to get things working in a way that’s really better for the city.”

The alleged hiring abuses involved contract employees who work for private companies at the direction of City Hall.

The inspector general's report accused the Department of Environment of directing hiring at a pair of non-profits that work closely with the city, one of them on Chicago's Climate Action Plan.

Instead of posting jobs and accepting applications through a fair and open process, the Department of Environment was accused of handpicking candidates for at least eight jobs and demanding that the non-profits hire those favored employees.

Malec-McKenna offered no specifics when asked how procedures have been changed to prevent further abuses involving contract employees.

She would only say, “We’ve been doing it differently since the beginning of the year. Clear communication. Just the things we need to be doing to make sure everybody is very clear about their roles and responsibilities.”

Two days after the inspector general filed his report, the Department of Environment suffered yet another embarrassment.

Inspector Michael Cease was charged with accepting a $1,150 bribe in exchange for helping a businessman avoid a hefty fine for having an apartment building loaded with asbestos.

“All your headaches are gone,” Cease was secretly recorded as saying.