In September 2009, Jaye Williams became Cook County’s chief financial officer. She’s relied on a nearly 30-year corporate banking career to implement new technologies and processes. Williams has recently come under scrutiny for her $230,000 salary, which is higher than salaries paid to chief financial officers at many other large local governments.
Before the pay issue surfaced, she spoke with the Current about the challenges facing the county.
Someone told you about the county CFO job. How did you come to work for the county?
I said, “Are you kidding me? First of all, I wouldn’t give consideration to the public sector.” And I knew nothing about it; that was just based on hype. “It sounds like a mess and I don’t really want to be a part of it.” But it’s never right to just tell someone no. …
I spent that time just trying to understand the county, its reality, the job, and I said, “This could really be a great job. It is a great job, a huge job. I know I can do the job, and it’s such a mess, I think I could go in there and really make a change.”
Were you involved in politics before?
Not really. I’m embarrassed to say this. In the world I was in, we didn’t really care (about politics). It didn’t touch what we did every day. We got involved in national politics. Part of my job when I ran all of corporate development (at BankOne) was to interface with Washington, D.C., and the regulators. …
Local politics, no. I didn’t know who did what, why they did it. I’m still learning the government structure. Sometimes they have to remind me, “Jaye, there are rules. We just have to follow them.” I tell them rules are made to be broken.
Has being an outsider helped you?
I think so. What I try do to is put myself in other people’s shoes. I didn’t come in with a heavy stick saying, “Let me tell you all the things that are wrong,” because I didn’t know. My perception is, and the president has said (this), there is lots of stuff we need to moveforward. …
The county had been underinvested in. It was my impression that the county had been treated in all of government in a regional base as a stepchild. I don’t know if that was true.
You walk around this place and it’s like you’re stuck in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and we really are. Business practices, investment in technology, thinking out of the box — people were a little more cautious about those things. People want to rationalize every dollar they spend, which makes sense. But you don’t want to be penny wise and pound foolish.
So I have to break through the barriers to give people the courage to say it makes sense to do this next investment, it makes sense to do this next project, because we will benefit. It may not be for three or four years, but it’s my job to help them see the vision for what we try to get done.
Government is budgeted one year at a time. I have never worked in an environment where people look at things one year at a time.
How do you motivate your employees?
I am really excited about this because I see we are on the cusp, if we can get everyone focused, to make some profound changes that I think can transform the county and also allow us to be a role model for the country. Because I only do this because I think there’s a bigger picture, not just Cook County.
If we can figure out how to help people sift through the requirements, which I’ll call the government bureaucracy, in an efficient manner, everyone will benefit from that. That’s what I get jazzed about.
I tell people my job is to move the ship forward … but it’s really to empower my employees to get there. And people have been responsive. We work long days, weekends … because we have a lot of work to do.
The first thing I did when I got here was build a team … we’re a team called the Bureau of Finance, and if we work together we can all get this done.
Your predecessor left after a scandal. What changes did you implement upon your arrival?
The first thing is trying to provide info that is consumable, so moving away from all these reams and reams of info that we transfer around and no one uses, and reduce it to what people care about.
Even with the commissions, they’ve all got their reports. What happens is that they collect dust. But I’ve got lots of people putting those reports together that collect dust. I said, “Time out. Take a second and figure out what do you want, what information will help you make your decisions. Let’s produce that.” … And even if you wanted all of that stuff and you’re asking for it, if you’re not reading it what’s the benefit?
(She includes better management, team building and the county’s OPTIMA program, which aims to streamline operations and combine departments, saving $300 million over three years, as other accomplishments.)
The concept (of OPTIMA) is to move those things that really don’t have anything to do with the core competency ... into a shared services model. You don’t need the sheriff’s (employees) to do HR for them. What you need to do is make sure the HR staff, which should be centralized, has the capacity to do what the sheriff needs. Trust me: By moving all that together, we will save money.
How would you describe the state of the county’s finances?
Stronger than any municipality in this region. When you talk about our financial position, we were actually in a unique position when the economy took a dive because we had just implemented the sales tax increase, and that started to show up in late 2008. …it really positioned us to withstand a huge decline in some of our revenue lines.
We looked really good in 2009. We were in a great position in 2009 not to lay people off, not to ask people to take furloughs.
At the same time, though, we suffer the realities of the region we operate in. So when the rating agencies look at me, they look at the state, they look at the city, because we draw from the same tax base. So when they’re struggling to meet their obligation, it has some impact on us.
Our big challenge is preparing for 2011. Nobody is forecasting a robust recovery in the economy.
Do you have goals you want to achieve before December, when a new president will take over?
Absolutely. We want to make sure we have a very clear view of what we’re likely to experience in 2011 and identify those things we need to do in order to have a balanced budget. We want to have the OPTIMA initiative far enough along that we have identified the opportunities we see and have a plan in place that leads us through the implementation (of the initiatives) … Continue to work through those things that are distractions so they are no longer distractions, and build capacity in areas where we know we have weaknesses.