City Hall is scheduled to assume responsibility for investigating allegations of improper hiring and firing under a pending court settlement, but the city’s chief investigator said Thursday he doesn’t have the staff to handle the job.
Asked during an interview if he had the necessary resources, Inspector General David Hoffman did not hedge.
“The answer is no,” he said.
The Daley administration has agreed to settle litigation stemming from the federal Shakman decree, which prohibits patronage considerations for most city job positions. The accord calls for submission of a hiring plan and establishment of a $12 million fund for people who have been passed over for jobs and promotions in favor of politically connected candidates. Hoffman’s office also is to take over investigative responsibilities from Noelle Brennan, a court-appointed monitor.
“The agreement is scheduled to be approved [by the court] on May 31,” Hoffman said. If that happens, “we will be the primary Shakman investigator beginning … June 1,” he said.
Hoffman said he has submitted a request to Mayor Richard Daley for reinforcements for his office, which has about 40 investigators.
And if the extra staffing is not approved?
“I heard [U.S. Atty.] Pat Fitzgerald say the other day in a press conference that ‘we will trouble trouble when it troubles us,’ which I thought was a great line,” Hoffman said. “It’s another way of saying we’ll cross that bridge if we get there.”
The proposed settlement was approved by the City Council Wednesday and “we are looking at next steps,” said Jodi Kawada, Daley’s deputy press secretary.
Hoffman, a former assistant U.S. attorney, was named inspector general by Daley in 2005 with orders to clean up City Hall. The appointment came in the midst of a federal investigation that uncovered corrupt contracting and widespread hiring fraud.
On Thursday, as Hoffman hosted his New York counterpart on a visit, he said in an interview that Chicago could take a few lessons from New York.
That city’s Department of Investigation has supplemented its 220 investigators with 75 employees in various city departments and agencies to assist in ferreting out wrongdoing, said Rose Gill Hearn, head of the department.
“To hear [Hearn] say that some departments voluntarily came to them and said, ‘We want to give you [job] positions because we want more oversight that would make us cleaner,’ what a great approach,” Hoffman said. “I would like to see as much of that in Chicago as possible.”
By city ordinance, when Chicago’s inspector general uncovers employee misconduct, he is required to reveal his findings only to the mayor’s office, the city’s Law Department and the worker’s department head.
But Hearn said she is free to announce results of her investigations publicly, something else that sets New York apart, Hoffman said.
“There is a value in the public knowing what the investigation was, what the result was, what the misconduct was,” Hoffman said. In Chicago, the City Council has barred inspector general investigations of its own members. Aldermen contend that political opponents could make false charges and leak word of a probe.
But New York’s Department of Investigation is free to probe council members, a power that Hoffman covets.
“City government is supposed to be transparent,” Hearn said. Council members “are elected officials. They have a great deal of power … They ought be accountable, just like the mayor and all of the mayor’s commissioners.”
In 2003, a New York investigation into an alleged shakedown of a developer by council member Angel Rodriguez produced a guilty plea in U.S. District Court and a 52-month prison sentence, she said.
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gwashburn@tribune.com
