Hello everyone! This summer has been absolutely full of activity in DuPage County! Appropriately, most the activity this summer has been focused on COVID-19 and the multifaceted response required by local governments, nearly overnight. The COVID-19 response in the US highlights the importance of local government, especially in crisis. While we’ve received some assistance from the federal government (through the CARES act which allocated $161M to DuPage County) - not only is it not enough to cover all the needs that have arisen, it’s up to the County Board to distribute, allocate, and track those funds.
While the local papers may have highlighted the more bumpy moments this summer, the majority of the time was spent with members of both parties putting their partisan feeling aside and figuring out how to best divide up and use these funds to reduce harm in our county. Any and all ideas were evaluated and perused if we felt they could help.
An early conversation which I was apart of with staff, colleagues, and our federal lobbyist led me to ask if we could use some of our CARES dollars to create our own PPP-like program for DuPage County Businesses. Within a week, staff and non-profit partners researched and created a program which has over $7M allocated to help local businesses survive. I recently also inquired about using CARES dollars to help us combat the upcoming flu season (the CDC has warned that the flu season could be particularly strenuous on our healthcare system this year if less people are vaccinated due to the loss of jobs and insurance and were are still fighting COVID-19) and the health department is already working with their partners to see what that could look like in DuPage County.
I’m incredible grateful to DuPage County staff for all their tireless work over the last 6+ months. They’ve been absolutely amazing. I’ve often said, due to the pandemic and the inadequate federal response, local officials have a platter of mediocre-to-bad solutions and were left to pick the least bad and hopefully most helpful solutions. None of it is enough and it can’t be until the federal government responds with testing and tracing like our peer nations. But I do think some of the creativity and persistence of my colleagues and county staff have helped DuPage weather these last few months with some highlights of success we can be proud of.
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This last meeting (8/11) we dealt with some issues which weren’t directly COVID-19 related and I wanted to explain my votes because I haven’t agreed with the news coverage which I think has forgotten the origin and context of some of these conversations.
First, the recorders office merger. On August 11, I voted to keep the question on the ballot about consolidating the recorders office into the clerks office. When this issue first came up, the initial proposal was that we would put this binding question on the ballot without a study - I opposed that. I’m a data driven person and I don’t ever want to make a decision based on speculation. The compromise was to put the question on the ballot but commission on a study to evaluate the data in the meantime to confirm the idea that this consolidation would save money and be efficient.
Where I diverged with some of my colleagues is in how I read the report - and probably more accurately, what my expectations were approaching that report. When the idea of consolidating these two offices arose - I initially thought the savings would be minimal, based on what we saw in the election division consolidation. Yes, some salaries and capital (think ordering office supplies more efficiently in bulk or licenses for software efficiency) were realized but the cost of the body of work (conducting elections or recording property records) wouldn’t change magically just because it’s with one manager (aka the County Clerk). The report we received said what I expected - yes, we will save the recorders salary and benefits and perhaps in the future some staff will reduce over time. So for me, it’s a values question- should it be one office like some of our peer counties or is that minimal savings not enough to reduce checks and balances between the two offices? I’m frankly not sure how I feel about that so that’s why I supported keeping the question on the ballot. It’s a values question so let’s ask the voters. The majority of the board disagreed so this question will not appear on your ballot; instead, you will see two candidates running for a 4 year term as Recorder.
The next question would’ve been a non-binding question about reducing the size of the county board from 18 members to 12 members (or three members per district to two members per district). While the media reports have lumped these questions - the recorder and county board size- together, the process to getting to the vote on 8/11 looked very different. (I know when I say process your eyes may rightfully start to glaze but keep reading! The details are always important and how we get to a decision -and if we arrive there thoughtfully- is important. That’s where good government happens - in the details. )
As I described above in the recorder case, first came the ballot question, then the study, then the question removal - I agree it seems sloppy! That was not the case with the county board size question. The idea of reducing the size of DuPage County’s board has long been asked - in fact, the board already reduced from 24 to 18 members when the Forest Preserve District spun off into its own body. Most recently, when the question arose again, we decided to do our homework FIRST, then decide if we needed the voters to help us figure out something values-related, like I describe a above. In this case, the Chairman convened a working group to study the issue and produce a final report with recommendations; I was honored to chair that working group.
My professional background in qualitative and quantitative research and analytics made this a fun task- while I had my own theory of the question, I wanted the group to gather as many questions and attempts at answers as possible so we could make a definitive decision on this long standing question. I was really happy with the level of participation I received from my fellow board members as well - thoughtful questions (even from members not serving on the committee!), willingness to supply data for us to evaluate and publish, full attendance during weeks we normally have a reduced schedule in July- I’m really proud of what we produced.
At the end of the working group, we approved a nearly 40 page, data-driven report which recommend that (1) we not ask voters this question as we found reducing the county board would harm residents, and (2) we also want to reduce the amount of committees our board has. You can read the final report here: https://www.dupageco.org/CountyBoard/Docs/63184/
The only potential “pro” for reducing the board is a potential cost savings - but that savings is a maximum and could easily be consumed by the ripple effects of reducing the board and possibly fully consume or surpass the savings. As we describe in the report, and discussed during debate, members do 45-60 hours of work per district a week, split among 3 members (during “normal” times - the hours are much expanded since March for all members). If that reduces to 2 members, these part-time jobs become more like full-time roles. To continue attracting good elected officials (not just those who can afford to serve), you have to pay officials. If more are working nearly full time, more may also require the health benefits. And more importantly, none of us individual have our own staff - we work with department heads and with the county board staff but they report to the chairman, not to individual members. Without a doubt we’d have to hire more staff - and good, intelligent, qualified staff that DuPage County deserves are worthy of more than bargain basement salaries.
Frustratingly, after that thorough process, some wished to go against the bi-partisan, data driven recommendations of the report and put the question to the voters anyway. That’s why the process matters here - we did the steps properly, we researched, debated, and interviewed staff at other peer counties to make a data driven decision, not a political one.
Luckily on 8/11 the majority of the board trusted the data and did their homework and didn’t vote to lob a question at voters when we knew the consequences could cause harm. I’m incredibly proud of the bi-partisan process and result and I hope we don’t continue debating this now that we have nearly 40 pages of well-researched data.
On a personal note, as we look nationally it’s easy for me to see why fighting for representation (our county board districts are bigger than some state house and some congressional districts!) at the local level - is actually one of the more important things I’ve done during my time on the board. Fighting for facts and information is always the right fight, but making sure residents have access to their local elected officials (especially at a time like this!) couldn’t be more important and I’m proud to have fought for it and will again if we are unnecessarily distracted by this again in the future.
Lastly, the board did approve 3 advisory questions, you can see them here: https://www.dupageco.org/Content.aspx?id=63256
On face value I have to agree with some of the criticism, I’d have loved if they were better worded or perhaps we could’ve combined the 1st and 3rd questions into a more efficient question on an already long ballot, but they are again just data collecting questions. While I agree with some of the debate Tuesday, I think we’ll see nearly unanimous support for the stockpile question, I have no idea how DuPage residents will answer the other two. I’m curious if one will get more or less support than the other, and I’m curious if the results will be heavily weighed towards one response or more split. The point is, I’m curious about the data! I want to know how our residents will respond! Because I’m a member of a minority party, I don’t have much control over the wording of the questions. Nonetheless, I voted yes for these questions because I’m not afraid of the results, in fact, I’m curious what our residents will have to say.
Next up for county business, most of this Fall will be continued action on COVID-19 and the 2021 budget. It’s going to be an incredibly difficult budget year due to the recession exasperated by the public health crisis. If you haven’t already, please take the budget survey to let us know your priorities! Survey found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FY2021Budget