The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) transmitted its fourth quarter report for 2011 to the City Council and City officials. Available on OIG website, the report provides a summary of OIG activity from October 1 through December 31, 2011.
Highlights from OIG misconduct investigations include:
- The OIG found that a tree trimmer in the Department of Streets & Sanitation (DSS) took the City’s mandatory 2010 Ethics Training for three other DSS employees. The OIG recommended his termination, but DSS instead gave him a 20 day suspension.
- A senior DSS official, aware of an ongoing OIG investigation, circumvented OIG investigation by doling out pre-emptive discipline to a ward supervisor who had admitted to OIG investigators that he had collected election signs in his ward, storing the signs of the ward’s incumbent alderman at a DSS facility for later return while throwing competitors’ signs away.
- A Chicago Fire Department (CFD) Battalion Chief repeatedly violated CFD and City rules over a two-year period by allowing his adult son to stay overnight at a firehouse and ride with him to fire emergencies in a CFD vehicle. The Fire Commissioner served the Battalion Chief with an oral reprimand instead of the recommended 20 day suspension.
In addition to these investigations, the quarterly reports OIG:
- Found no accountability, ownership, or standards for the City’s practice of requiring TIF subsidy recipients to make donations to specific charities or public programs;
- Prompted the City to terminate its residency waiver program in response to an OIG review of the City’s residency waiver process, which temporarily allowed certain non-residents to work for the City, which concluded that the City’s waiver program was not legally authorized under the City’s Residency Ordinance;
- Prompted the City, in response to an OIG Open Chicago request, to publicly post online materials provided by commissioners to the City Council during the 2012 budget hearings.
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