When you're ready, Chairman.

All right.

The hour of 10 a.m.

having come and gone.

The uh meeting of the finance subcommittee on litigation of the Cook County Board of Commissioners will come to order.

Madam Secretary, please take a roll.

Thank you, Chairman.

Commissioner Degnan.

Vice Chair Laurie, present.

Thank you.

President Marita.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sean Morrison.

Thank you, Commissioner Stamps is present.

Commissioner Trevor.

And Mr.

Chairman is present.

Mr.

Chairman, you have a quorum.

All members are present.

Thank you, Lynn.

Any public speakers?

You do have a public speaker, and let me remind you of a errata changing the case number for item number 26, 1156, page three of your agenda.

Taiwan Sims is our public speaker.

Sir, are you in the room?

Taiwan Sims.

Please come to the mic.

Let me remind you of our rules for public speaking.

Persons authorized to provide public testimony shall not use vulgar abusive discriminatory, profane or otherwise inappropriate language when addressing the body.

Failure to act appropriately or failure to adhere to the time requirements may result in expulsion from the meeting and or disqualify a person from providing future testimony.

You have three minutes to address the body, sir.

I'll keep time for you.

Okay.

Um good morning, Commissioner.

Morning.

Um been down here countless times speaking on the issue 23D 79597, which was a order of protection that was given to an Alberta Reed.

Um that case morphed into another case, was a which was a 24 OP case, and then this year it morphed into a DV case.

Now I have I had no litigation or have no litigation, however, I've been going through the process of the documents that I have.

And then this document it shows countless procedural issues.

Not only one system, but from the Bureau of Internal Affairs, from COPA, even to the CCPSA.

And even though I've spoken to this committee or this commission countless times about this issue, there's been no follow-up, and so there's been no remedy.

And I have been suffering this for three years now.

Um I spoke to the litigation, and no follow-up, sir.

So you all have to explain to me how this works and how I can access you all to help me.

Because with just a little investigation, then this would have been resolved.

And so I would like to understand why it hasn't been resolved.

Sir, you can look towards me.

I'm talking to you.

You the litigation man at the show meeting, so I'm addressing you right now.

Explain to me.

When I came here the other time, I gave to you, Mr.

Williams, the information with just a little investigation with the oversight committees and whatnot.

If that was to help me to understand why this issue is hindered me for the last three years of my life, has caused me to lose loss of liberty, opportunity, all these different things.

And I'll come to this commission coming from the litigation, give information that should have aided you all in helping me, and yet there's been no help, so help me to understand why not.

Mr.

Steele, you the 17 commissioners, because you are black man, that's why I'm addressing you.

Because y'all are responsible.

You, you, and you and you are responsible.

Y'all don't get it, do y'all?

I'm not addressing them.

I'm addressing us.

Because I came to us.

I came in this room because everybody has uh um a safeguard or representatives, and y'all are the representatives for me.

So I'm addressing them, but I'm addressing y'all.

And why there's been no help, but everybody gets help.

Everybody gets the privilege of utilizing their representatives or seeing them through.

I don't know.

So, sir, you the litigation man, I would like to know if anybody can approach me, Mr.

Williams.

If you can approach me and help me to understand why there's been no help, please.

Commissioner Sean Morrison, Chairman Point privileges to clarify something for the general public.

Um public statement is exactly that.

It's a moment of the public to come in and address a body or we'll say up to three minutes.

And uh advice of the general public.

So in all fairness, um it's not an opportunity to have back and forth dialogue between the commissioners and the general public at this point.

Uh for issues like that, the best course would probably be to try to set an appointment with the commissioners or whoever else you as the general public wouldn't even want to have that conversation with.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Any further public speakers?

That motion is Chairman.

Lowry second by Commissioner Marida.

All those in favor signify by saying I.

All right.

We good to go.

All right.

Just to repeat, the motion to return to open session was made by Vice Chair Lowry, seconded by Commissioner Trevor, and the vote was in the affirmative.

The chair on the outer chain of motion to receive and file item 260691, the 2025 fourth quarter OIIG report.

That motion is made by Vice Chair Lowry, seconded by Commissioner Stamps.

We will now hear from Inspector General Paxton as to that report.

Good morning, Terrell Paxton, Cook County Inspector General.

Good morning, Commissioners, attendees, and everyone watching the stream.

This is the OIG quarterly report for the fourth quarter, and it was issued on January 15, 2026.

Due to the OIG ordinance restrictions, I could only discuss the contents within the OIG quarterly report and other information as part of our investigative files and our confidential.

My presentation covers OIG activities for the time period from October 1st, 2025 through December 31st, 2025.

We received a total of 208 complaints compared to the 226 complaints received during the previous quarter.

We referred 47 complaints to Cook County management or outside government agencies compared to 62 complaints referred the previous quarter.

And we completed 20 investigations during the fourth quarter compared to 16 the previous quarter.

Two were for the clerk's office, and one was for the medical examiner's office.

18 of the 20 completed investigations related to fraudulent PPP loans by Cook County employees.

It was sustained.

Recommended termination, but we did not recommend placement on the ineligible for rehire list because the clerk's office does not have such a list.

Many of these cases derive from our proactive and direct assistance.

We initiated a review after receiving numerous complaints about customer service issues at the clerk's office vital records division.

Complaints alleged failure to provide requested documents, inability to contact anyone to request documents, and early office closures.

We recommended that the clerk's vital records department should work with the vendor to provide more accurate delivery windows for vital record orders.

We also recommended that more information on the clerk's website should be provided and informed customers when there would be signatures required upon delivery.

Recommendations accepted.

Further, the OIG recommended that the vital records department should also develop an electronic system for collecting, tracking, and responding to mail orders to ensure they are better able to locate and efficiently process mail orders.

Recommendation accepted.

Lastly, DOIG recommended that vital records, the vital records department should develop written standard operating procedures to ensure there is consistency across the department for customer relations, processing the mail, processing of orders, and elevation of complaints, recommendation accepted.

This was a public statement.

The entire statement, including the clerk's response, is available on our website.

Finally, there were two investigations.

Well, one more investigation for Kirk County Hospital.

We received a complaint that a CCH employee was on long-term disability and recited out of state.

The claim further alleged that the employee received health care benefits for the county.

We found that the employee was not receiving health care benefits, but we found that the employee had abandoned their job and management did not institute timely discipline.

We recommended termination of the employee and discipline for the manager that didn't timely discipline employee.

So the next section, last section, prior quarter outstanding recommendations.

There were 12 outstanding recommendations from the third quarter.

We received responses for each.

Those responses are summarized in the quote report.

However, there was one severely delinquent response from the assessor's office, I.g.

22-0125.

It was issued on September 17, 2025.

It was due November.

We have received a response from the assessor's office.

However, we cannot discuss the contents of that response because as part of our investigative file, it would be released in the next report.

Not first quarter because it wasn't submitted timely for the first quarter report.

Thank you.

We have a representative of the assessor on that issue present.

Do you wish them to to be to address this or does that include it in the confidential part of what you just related?

They're completely free to discuss it.

If we have a representative of the assessor to respond to the delinquent issue, is Ms.

Gibbons.

And this is uh item 220125, I believe.

Yes, um, Chairman Bretton.

Uh Tasha Gibbons counsel for the Cook County Assessor, and in fact, we have submitted a response.

Uh the report was issued in September as acknowledged.

We did conduct our own investigation and had been in communication with the Office of the Independent Inspector General to let them know as much.

Um there were a couple of reasons why it took longer than it should have, but we have completed that and issued our response last week.

Thank you, Ms.

Gibbons.

And thank you for being here.

Uh Commissioner Sean Morrison.

Chairman, thank you.

Uh Inspector General Maxton.

The PP Lee, I'm sorry, the PPP loan debacle uh has perplexed me for the last three plus years as these as this has been unfolding.

Throughout the State of Illinois, tens of millions of dollars, um, nearing 100 million dollars of fraudulent PPP loans.

Um with government employees.

You can quadruple that from private sector folks that have tried to scheme and scam the system.

Ironically, in the private sector, so far, vast majority of those folks have been prosecuted.

Uh many of them have also been entered into civil litigation to get those funds back.

Um I have been digging, as you are aware, for a few years now, trying to find out how many of these government employees have been prosecuted.

And I'm still very dismayed to find out that it's less than one percent on the back of my envelope.

Is that an accurate assessment?

Don't speak to any case, but just just in general.

Well, I I can say that um, based on my recollection, those individuals that have been prosecuted from uh that were cook county employees typically come from the sheriff's office.

Uh define that for me a little bit better.

They typically come from a sheriff's office, meaning the sheriff has brought the case forward?

Chair office, um, employee deputies, employees have been uh prosecuted on a number of in the number of cases.

Um I think primarily from the attorney general's office.

And you have you have mentioned that you have referred some of these cases to the attorney general as well.

Um State's attorney's office, attorney general, uh United States Attorney's.

Okay.

And just curious, when was the last time you met with any of those agencies?

Especially the U.S.

attorney's office.

When was the last time you met with them?

I don't want to put them on a um the hot seat, but it is it's been quite some time that we've talked to the United States Attorney's Office.

But we are in contact with the State's attorney's office uh, the State's attorney's office every quarter.

We we send batches over.

Um I'd like you to continue to do that and maybe press maybe press and have those conversations with all three.

Um look from an investigative standpoint, when you look at when you look at the report just for this quarter, and you've got what, 20 something on there.

Um what's what's funny and speaks out to the fraud is that this is probably not only not I mean, obviously these are federal charges and they should be federal charges.

They were federal tax dollars that were used.

These were employees of our of our government, of our government body uh that chose to engage in fraud, and and these are fraud, they're clearly fraud.

And it's very easy to detect, especially today in on April 15th, 2026, when you have extreme AI that can compare things in nanoseconds.

Um but what strikes me funny here is that is that there's obviously some some RICO that's taking place here because it's ironic that the majority of these are all within there's four different dollar amounts that almost all of these cases have put in for.

Either a $19,000, a $21,000, a 9,500 or $19,500.

Those are the four main ones, and it rings through to hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of applications that were put in.

Somebody came up with that number, some group came up with that number, some collaboration came up with that number and convinced employees within the government sector from the state to the cities to the counties to partake in this fraud.

Um as a government body, we need to do everything we can to push it.

And I'm just gonna say it.

The fact, the fact that 95 plus percent have not been prosecuted yet, is really is really a deleterious and and and it's it's almost malfeasance on behalf of of our government bodies.

Every commissioner here should be pushing, should be pushing the legal authorities to prosecute these individuals.

And the fact that anybody would not be fired and or still be eligible for future employment, that's also astounding.

It's the first I heard that today.

I'd like to have a conversation with some of those electeds that um your your testimony is is that the clerk's office and one other perhaps does not have a do not rehire list as a policy?

That's correct.

And in our quarterly report, we have it listed.

We have those listed that have the ineligible list and those that don't.

I think as a county body, we probably need to rectify that.

I think I think that every every agency hiring agency within Cook County should have a do not rehire list.

Um it should go everywhere from all the elected's offices all the way down to you know OUPs.

Um I I think that that's the way that it needs to go.

And I thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Um we're gonna go ahead.

I just want to say the the good news is that those individuals that committed fraud against our federal government are not here with and don't have access to all of our personal information as well as doctor um stakeholders who engage with the county.

So at least they're off the books and can't commit fraud within Cook County government.

Uh Commissioner Moore and then Commissioner Daly.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Stance.

Uh good morning, Director Paxton.

How are you?

Pretty good.

How are you, Commissioner?

Thank you for your testimony.

Um I have a question about the uh you you talked about the allegations of fraud.

Um you said how many of them were founded versus how many were unfounded.

When one is unfounded, what is the process?

So uh let me let me be more clear.

Um there are people that uh have wanted to do business or applied for jobs with Cook County that had a PP loan and it was investigated, and that became public information or whatever that they were being investigated for a PP loan, but it was found unfounded.

Is their name cleared?

Do they get something from us that says this was unfounded?

We don't issue their names as part of the ordinance if um someone is not found guilty or there's no discipline that's um levy, we do not release their names.

So I would know no one no one would know that they were investigated.

Well, um I was contacted by an agency, I won't say which one, but they were saying that they knew that a person had a PP loan, and the person said that it was unfounded uh because they were interested in the viewed, and um they said that they were uh uh not eligible for hiring because they had uh a PPP loan that was investigated.

That sounds like that's an issue on that that hiring committee that's using that information against I guess the this person that was investigated.

So that the agency told the person that they needed to provide something to show that it was unfounded, they were like, we don't have anything to provide.

Interesting.

I mean, we I don't know how to advise this person when they maybe maybe that department, maybe that person can file some kind of complaint with our office and we'll look into it.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um secondly, um I've been contacted by uh MBEs that are not the prime contractors, so they don't specifically have a contract with the county.

Uh but they're a sub to a contractor who has a contract with the county.

They're alleging that the contractor is mistreating the sub, but our response is we don't have a contract with the contract, the subcontractor, so we have no fiduciary duty to get involved.

I don't agree with that, and I'd like to hear your opinion on that.

I would say have that subcontractor, the MWBE contact our office and make a complaint with our office.

They can even remain anonymous, but it's only um so much we can do to keep things anonymous.

But that's definitely something that we'll investigate and have investigated in the past.

Thank you, sir.

Well, Commissioner Moore, you want to call your committee?

Oh, yes, thank you.

The hour having come and gone, 10 30 a.m.

I'd like to call the Board of Commissioners Transportation Committee to order.

Thank you, sir.

And your role is Commissioner Aguilar?

Here.

Thank you.

Commissioner Anaya.

Present Commissioner Britton?

Here, Commissioner Daly.

Commissioner Degnan.

Commissioner Gaynor.

Aye.

Commissioner Gaynor is present and participating remotely.

Thank you, ma'am.

Commissioner Laurie.

Present.

Commissioner McCaskill is out of the room.

We will mark her when she returns.

Commissioner Miller.

Miller here.

No.

Commissioner Marita.

Are you present?

Thank you.

Commissioner Kevin Morrison.

Thank you, sir.

Commissioner Sean Morrison.

John Morrison present.

Commissioner Scott.

Present.

Commissioner Stamps.

Veterans.

Uh huh.

Thank you, ma'am.

Commissioner Trevor.

Here.

Thank you.

Commissioner Vasquez.

Mr.

Chairman is present.

You do have a quorum when we return, you should do remote participation roll calls.

We'll stand to the call.

Chair.

Thank you, Chair.

And we're going to call two more committees.

Uh first off, the hour of 1045 having arrived.

The meeting of the legislation and intergovernmental relations committee of the Cook County Board have come to order.

Yes, sir.

Legislation at 1045.

Commissioner Aguilar.

Present.

Thank you.

Commissioner Naya?

Present.

Commissioner Daly.

President.

Commissioner Deckman?

Commissioner Gainer.

Present.

Commissioner Gaynor is present, participating remotely.

Commissioner Laurie.

Present.

Commissioner McCaskill.

We will add her when she returns.

Commissioner Miller.

Miller here.

Commissioner Moore.

Thank you, sir.

Commissioner Marita is present.

Commissioner Kevin Morrison.

Commissioner Sean Morrison.

Or some present.

Commissioner Scott.

Present.

Commissioner Stamps?

Commissioner Trevor?

Here.

Commissioner Vasquez.

Mr.

Chairman is present.

You do have all members present.

We'll add Commissioner McCaskill when she returns.

And at that time you'll do a remote roll call.

And this committee will stand in recess of the college chair.

And Chair Miller is recognized.

Thank you, Chairman.

Madam Secretary, the hour of 11 having arrived, I'd like to call to uh order the Cook County Veterans Committee meeting.

Thank you, ma'am.

Commissioner Aguilar?

Here.

Commissioner Britton.

Here.

Commissioner Daly.

Here.

Commissioner Laurie.

Commissioner Marita.

Present.

Thank you.

Commissioner Stamps.

Yes.

And Madam Chair is present.

You do have a quorum.

All members present.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll go back to litigation.

And Commissioner Daly.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you for the presentation.

Just a I know you can't talk about specific cases.

But it did you indicate the amount of cases that were referred to states attorney?

But did you indicate the amount of cases that were referred to states attorney, whether it be the state's attorney, attorney general, or the um district attorney?

Is it three like three just say whatever number it is?

So we've completed 100 investigations that were sustained.

And we refer all of our cases to the state's attorney's office.

And of those 100, whether it be the wherever you refer to, are you informed then if they go ahead?

Would you know what percent were um looked at?

We we would know.

And what would be the hundred zero?

Okay.

Commissioner Attorney General is wrong as well.

Yes, we've been in contact with all of them.

Thank you.

Commissioner Stamps.

Thank you, Chair.

I was just curious um as to how many more PPC cases do you are on the docket to be um resolved.

Well, the the exact number is part of our investigative files, but I will say that we plan to it looks as though things are going to be wrapped up in the next couple of quarters.

Um if I may, I want to give a lot of credit to our staff.

We made it a priority to get these cases done and out.

You're gonna see um you see what I'm saying in the next quarterly report that's due out today.

Thank you.

There being no further questions, the motion on the floor is to receive and file 260691, the fourth quarter OIAG report.

Um this is still in litigation, so I don't need um a roll call.

I yes, all those in favor signify saying aye.

Oppose nay, append the chair the ayes have it.

Motion passes.

And that was 691.

Okay.

Now the chair will now retain a motion to receive and file item 261155.

The case disposition summary for advice, transaction, and complex litigation, labor and appointment, medical litigation.

That motion made by Vice Chairman Lowry, check seconded by Commissioner Degnan.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Opposed nay, pin the chair, they ask have it.

Next general change a motion to approve item 261156 as amended in the errata.

261169, 261170, and 261171.

That motion is made by Vice Chair Lowry, seconded by Commissioner Marita.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Opposed, nay, pin the chair, the ayes have it.

Chair will now attend a motion to receive and file item 261172 and 261178.

That motion is made by Vice Chair Lowry, seconded by Commissioner Degnan.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Opposed nay, pend the chair, they ask have it.

There meeting no further business for this committee.

Motion to adjourn is made by Vice Chairman Lowry, second by Commissioner Trevor.

All those in favor of adjournment signify by saying aye.

Opposed nay, append the chair, the ayes have it.

We are adjourned.