News Coverage: Patrick Driscoll

Cook County could soon be free from a pair of decades-long decrees that require judicial monitoring of detainees at the Cook County Jail.

Commissioners today approved a set of measures that will eliminate the so-called Duran and Harrington decrees, which monitor overcrowding and mental health of the jail population.

If the county adheres to guidelines proposed by the federal government, the plaintiffs in the two cases have agreed to drop their complaints. Read more...

County commissioners expressed disappointment today that the county continues to pay expensive settlements related to violations of the hiring protocols.

In the board’s regular meeting today - and exactly three weeks until the Feb. 2 primaries - it approved more than $416,000 in settlements for violating the Shakman decree. To date in the current fiscal year, Cook County has paid more than $1.1 million, and more than $3.3 million since the county signed on to the Shakman decree.

“When is this going to end?” asked Commissioner Tony Peraica. Read more...

Consider this: Cook County has paid more than $7.3 million in worker’s compensation claims this year. Yesterday, commissioners approved nearly $300,000 in claims.

That included:

• More than $60,000 to a Highway Department worker for injuries suffered in 1996 and 1998;
• Nearly $70,000 to an autopsy technician for back injuries he sustained lifting a 300-pound body from a dumpster in 2006;
• About $14,000 to a sheriff’s custodian for injuries she sustained in 1997 and 1998 – both of which occurred while she “was reaching around to pick up a piece of toilet paper and twisted her back”;
• More than $2,400 to a clerk who got tendonitis from “extensive writing”;
• And a $51,539.56 claim or a correctional officer who injured his elbow, which led to kidney malfunction.

While some/most/all of these are no doubt hard-working employees who came on some hard luck, Commissioner Bridget Gainer says there’s a flaw in the worker’s comp process, which has little oversight and few opportunities for legislators to investigate workers’ claims. Read more...