Human Resources Board Policy Keeps Convicted Felons on Payroll in Chicago

Chicago Elections 2011 ^ | 10/26/2010 | Michael Volpe

[chitownguy]

On September 23rd, 2010, Jose Hernandez became the fifteenth city building inspector to be convicted of taking payoffs in what’s been termed operation crooked code. Yet, according to Bill McCaffrey, spokesperson for the buildings department, Hernandez continues to draw a paycheck. Worst of all, McCaffrey says this occurs because Hernandez was able to manipulate a mandate put in place by the Human Resources Board.This board has had its own history of corruption; the latest involved a Reverend, Lucious Hall, who was taking money to look the other way on cases involving city workers with clout. This rule allows anyone facing formal charges to appeal any potential final termination until their sentencing. Yet, all of these folks are still fired though not terminated. What that effectively means is that they draw a paycheck without doing any work. In fact, when this was first revealed, the city actually had these guys go back to work supposedly doing menial administrative work.

[DrC]

This is why it’s astonishing the Blago was convicted of even one charge: seems to me he was just conducting business as usual in a cesspool nearly unrivaled in its political corruption.