While the proposed 2012 budget prepared by the office of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is still being printed, Preckwinkle introduced her 2012 budget with a speech at the Union League Club and a press conference after. Preckwinkle followed through on her threat for significant lay offs if the County’s numerous unions didn’t agree to a series of eight furlough, shutdown, and non paid holiday days.
Preckwinkle said the current budget includes more than one thousand layoffs, of which more than half come from the Cook County Health and Hospital System, as a result of the union’s refusal to accept these shutdown days. She said, “We will present a balanced budget as is required by law. It will call for significant lay offs unfortunately.”
Preckwinkle laid out the stark terms in a letter from Kent Ray, her Director of Labor relations. The letter read in part, “(you) respond to our proposal that your members accept eight unpaid days, including six unpaid holidays during fiscal year 2012,” continuing, “I cannot stress enough the importance of this proposal to Cook County’s ability to balance its budget with the smallest possible reductions in force.”
Anders Indall, spokesperson for the American Federal, State, and Municipal Employees Union in Chicago didn’t immediately return a phone call for comment. Adam Rosen, spokesperson for the local Service Employees International Union, which represents about 2,500 employees in the Cook County Health and Hospital System, said, “furlough and shutdown days are a mandatory subject of bargaining.” Rosen said that SEIU, along with Teamsters and AFSCME, have been in months of negotiations trying to ratify new contracts, many of which hadn’t been ratified for up to four years. He said the issue of furlough days never came up during those discussions.
“It was never brought to the table,” said Rosen.
The budget includes cuts in other parts of CCHHS. Last week, the Welles Park Bulddog exclusively broke the news that CCHHS passed a budget that included about $47 million for consultants all while only allocating to hire on 20% of the current open vacancies in the nursing staff.
Preckwinkle’s office told the Bulldog they were aware of the situation and going through the budget “line by line,” at the time. Today, Preckwinkle announced that the budget her office will submit will have “significantly less for consultants,” than the $47 million allocated by the CCHHS board, which is independent of the Cook County Board. Marisa Kollias, spokesperson at CCHHS, confirmed that negotiations between CCHHS resulted in significantly reduced allocations for consulting work. Preckwinkle said that her budget has “significantly less,” than the $47 million the CCHHS board allocated.
“Dr. Raju (the system’s new CEO) understands that the reliance on expensive consultants is something the system can no longer afford.”
Both Preckwinkle and Kollias also confirmed that Oak Forest Hospital, which has already been transformed from a full service hospital to an outpatient clinic will have that transformation reflected in this budget. Preckwinkle said that Oak Forest is scheduled to lose 185 doctors in her 2012 budget. Kollias says that tt’s all part of the strategic vision 2015, passed by the CCHHS board, being implemented by Cook County to transform Oak Forest from a full service hospital to an outpatient specialty care clinic. Strategic Vision 2015, which passed the CCHHS Board in 2010, calls for more specialty care facilities in the county. Marisa Kollias, spokesperson for CCHHS, says that “specialty care is the wave of the future.” Preckwinkle said that many doctors currently at Oak Forest will be encouraged to apply to open vacancies elsewhere in the system.
The budget that Preckwinkle submits will still have about a ten million difference between the subsidy that Cook County will provide CCHHS and the one that CCHHS is demanding. That number has come down significantly as it started at $126 million. While CCHHS has its own independent board, CCHHS relies on a subsidy from Cook County to pay for any revenue short fall.
Preckwinkle’s budget still needs to be passed by the Cook County Board, and so its details still remain fluid.
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