The Finance Committee of the Committee on the Courtney.

Chairman, yes, we can begin now.

Yes, thank you.

And we will begin with the uh little parcel.

The public administrator.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for allowing me to be here again.

Just to re just to reiterate, the probate act sets forth the duties of the public administrator.

The office operates entirely on funds it generates through statutory mandate and not from tax revenue.

Funds are generated from estates of the cedents who leave no will, or those named as executive are incapable of serving, unavailable or disqualified.

The administration of estates is subject to the review and oversight by the Circuit Court of Cook County probate division.

The

PA's office has 15 full-time staff.

This represents a 20 percent reduction from 2016.

The

office utilizes service of four outside attorneys with fees charged directly to the estates, subject to the review and approval by the PA and the Circuit Court of Cook County.

To date, we have done 900 909 investigations.

Just to just to reiterate, investigations don't always

you

know go into an estate.

There's a 10,000 threshold.

The

current budget is 1,948,000.

To date, the public administrators' office has generated 2.7 million dollars in fees and court costs.

This represents 140% of our revenue target for FY26.

So we've had a very, very successful year.

It's

important to note that $28 million has been returned to heirs and beneficiaries of these states for our administration.

And this is the good part about the job.

We are able to give monies to people who may not have accepted it or expected

it.

And uh, you know, 28 million dollars is a lot of money.

We

work full time to facilitate wrongful death actions with Cook County.

To date, the PA has assist assisted in recovering $3.2 million in wrongful deaths from nursing homes.

The

PA budget for 27 is 2.1 million dollars, only 171,000 more than FY26.

This increase is a result of SEIU collective bargaining agreement salary increases, merit-based promotions, a general and contingent operating account increase for real estate management bond premiums and related administrative costs.

The PA secures and manages real property, which is often illegally occupied.

The operating account supports this.

The PA has closed on 40 properties last year, generating 11.5 million dollars in sales in Cook County.

Currently, the PA has approximately 39 properties under management.

Let me just make one comment on that.

When we take over property, we have to manage it.

We're we're property managers.

We have to make sure the grass is cut, the snow is removed, the electric is working, the roof is not leaking, the basement's not flooding, and this is something that uh that we do.

So we basically are a real estate manager at the same time, in addition to what we do.

So in closing, I just want to say that uh we have done a fantastic job this year.

I want to thank the staff for the work they've done.

I owe everything to the staff and and the work they do.

Uh and uh we're hoping that we don't have any cuts in our budget this year because to do so would really affect the citizens of Cook County for the work we do.

And after with that, I'll take some questions.

Chair Lauer.

Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for uh the overview.

I have uh one main question, and I just need clarity for myself.

Um and I need this based on uh questions which have been raised by constituents, but just for my own knowledge.

So if there's a question or issue concerning the matter which arises uh within your office, what is the next step relative to having that issue addressed?

Is it something within your office where where you handle those types of situations, or would the matter immediately be referred elsewhere, maybe to the courts or somewhere else?

Well, it depends on what the issue is.

If it's something within the probate system we can handle, my staff is readily available to do so, and I I've done that myself too, but