If Rahm really wants a strong watchdog, here’s what he should do
Does Mayor Rahm Emanuel really want a strong, independent inspector general? Or is he more interested in making a show of government accountability while simultaneously limiting the potential of that office to sniff out waste, inefficiency and corruption?
Inspector General Joe Ferguson thinks the latter. On Monday, he accused Emanuel’s streets and sanitation commissioner of cutting off cooperation on March 21 with an audit of the city’s new grid-based garbage collection system, a signature Emanuel initiative. Ferguson on Monday said he has canned the audit for now because of that lack of cooperation.
The commissioner says the audit was premature because the program wasn’t yet fully in place in March, and Emanuel is backing him up. But on April 11, Emanuel very publicly declared that the program, in place in all of Chicago since mid-April, would save the city $18 million annually. In Ferguson’s view — and one we share — the mayor’s announcement was pure showmanship, an attempt to “own this number.” The IG had planned to wait until August to collect performance data.
More significantly, Ferguson says this is no aberration. The administration regularly denies his office access to information it is entitled to, Ferguson charges.
“We find that access is denied in all forms of inquiry,” Ferguson told us. This applies to audits but more often to investigations and other inquiries.
The mayor’s office vigorously denies this, saying the administration has cooperated with more than a dozen audits, noting that the IG’s office regularly thanks departments for cooperating. His spokeswoman also says the city will fully cooperate with the garbage audit but insists that Ferguson’s timing was premature. And they may be right, as key issues, including changes to the supervisory structure, were still being worked out, as were certain performance measures.
But if that’s the case, the city could have made that clear. Instead, department officials refused to answer questions or spoke in generalities, the IG’s office says
From where we sit, it is difficult to referee the audit dispute — though it seems blatantly contradictory to call an audit premature while also publicly bragging about savings, even if the estimate was only meant to reflect a point in time, as the mayor’s office claims. We see little point in a premature estimate except to make the mayor look good.
So is the audit an aberration for an otherwise cooperative Emanuel administration?
The onus is on the mayor’s office to make that case.
Here are few ways to get started:
Make good on campaign promises:
Candidate Emanuel said he would ensure that the IG got “all relevant information from all parts of the executive branch of city government.” But Mayor Emanuel has vigorously fought the IG’s efforts to enforce his own subpoenas in court, forcing Ferguson to rely instead on the city’s lawyers — the administration he is supposed to keep watch over. He also has refused to expand the IG’s oversight to the Park District and the Public Building Commission, as he pledged to do.
Come clean on IG reappointment:
Ferguson’s term expires in November and it appears Emanuel wants him out. But instead of saying so, Emanuel says Ferguson should apply to a blue-ribbon panel like any other applicant. That process, he says, was recommended by his Ethics Reform Task Force, led by venerable leaders like the late Dawn Clark Netsch, and he is obliged to follow it.
Disingenuously, Emanuel fails to note that the commission also said he could reappoint the IG without going before the panel.
Reappoint Ferguson, who has earned
His job is not to please the mayor.