In 2000, Dorothy Brown was the first African-American woman to be elected clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County.She is an attorney and a CPA, and she holds an MBA. Brown says her top goals as Cook County Board president would include reducing the sales tax, using technology to improve efficiency and improving the healthcare system with more streamlined billing procedures.
Windy City Times: Which of your professional experiences have most prepared you to serve as Cook County board president?
Dorothy Brown: First of all, I have a long history of public service from the standpoint of working at non-profit agencies as a chairman of the board. ... That has prepared me, even though I came from a set of poor and uneducated parents myself who taught me the value of hard work, dedication and what a good education can get you. The second thing that really prepares me is my public service as Cook County Clerk of Court, running a $100 million system and 2,100 employees for these last nine years. Even before that, I was general auditor for the Chicago Transit Authority, auditing $3 billion of assets and making sure there were proper internal controls. I really believe that kind of public service has prepared me for this office and I'm looking forward to continuing to serve people.
WCT: Tell us how you would reduce the sales tax and balance the budget.
DB: People are most concerned about the last sales tax increase, so I'm committed to lowering that sales tax increase and replacing it with non-tax revenue. As clerk of the court, we brought in $260 million without raising taxes. What I did was create a revenue increase initiative task force when I first took office. We looked at every non-tax revenue statute and ordinance, and when we had to go to Springfield to make changes in the law, we did that.
I also am going to send staff to national conferences so we can benchmark against other counties. As clerk of the court, I sent people to conferences and we found ideas. We also determined there needed to be a law changed to permit clerks of court use collection agencies. We brought in an additional $14 million that way.
Another thing I want to do is create a Cook County grants and research department. I want to have a coordinated effort that will help departments find grants and when they find them help them write the proposals and apply for those grants. I believe we can get a lot more money into Cook County in that way. I believe in new ideas, not new taxes. I am also looking at creating some not- for-profit agencies that would donate to handle some Cook County governmental services. ... Things over at juvenile department, for example, we could create a non-profit agency for mentoring programs and the like.
And, I'm going to expand the property tax and sales tax base, not increase those, but expand the base of individuals and businesses that would actually be paying them. I'm going to create an economic development roundtable of the village presidents and Cook County leaders, and I'm going to have a coordinated strategic effort to go after manufacturing and green technology companies to come to Cook County, and we will create more jobs. Then we'll have more people who have income to be able to pay property and sales taxes. Also, I want to create Cook County small business administration office that will be a direct liaison to the national Small Business Administration. We need to help people stay in business and so that will create more jobs... As we move into the technological age, we can help the entire county be more technologically efficient, there are going to be a lot of services that we can provide, that we can actually charge for.
WCT: What is your plan for reforming the Cook County healthcare system?
DB: I believe there needs to continue to be an independent oversight of the health and hospital system because it is almost a third of the county's budget, and you need healthcare professionals overseeing this system. There would need to be an evaluation to determine its efficiencies and to determine if there needs to be any tweaking in the way it was set up. Once that is done, let's make some permanent oversight of the health and hospital system...But what I want to do as county board president is make recommendations to them on reforming the registration process. For us to really be able to fund that hospital system, we have to make sure we are billing insurance. Right now they don't even ask if they have health insurance...and also determine if someone is coming from another state or another county... We could do some intergovernmental chargeback... Also, the inmates in county jail, there is healthcare provided for them, and many of them have health insurance. For the juveniles, they may even have health insurance through their parents. We need to bill that insurance if they do have it, and if not, we need to be helping them apply for Medicaid or Medicare...My grant and research department would help us get any federal grants that are out there for healthcare. We should be participating in that national discussion going on in Washington DC on healthcare for all citizens. I want to create a forum of all county board presidents in Illinois that would set national policy because right now with the healthcare bill. If 96 percent of Americans had healthcare, that would help our system right there.
WCT: Do you support the legalization of gay marriage?
DB: I've always had the positions of civil unions and I believe the important thing is that people have the opportunity to have rights to proper healthcare, fair housing, to have health insurance and those kinds of things. I fully support that. ... I issued and executive order for no discrimination within the clerk of the court, regardless of race, creed, color or sexual orientation. And I have in my office, a gay and lesbian committee, and we support and have recognized many organizations. And within my Cook County board president's office, we will also have an advisory committee for the gay and lesbian community. So that is the position I have at this time.
WCT: What do you believe has been the biggest mistake of Todd Stroger's administration, and what would you have done differently in the same situation?
DB: I think the sales tax was probably the biggest problem that has occurred in his administration. What he did not do is try to find alternative sources of revenue, so he would not have to go down that road of raising the taxes on the backs of the taxpayers, and also not opening the lines of communication to citizens and commissioners. I am going to create a citizens' budget review commission ... so they can see if there are any mysterious funds in there, then they can make a recommendations of what they think needs to be done.
I want to create this commission, make government transparent, open it up to the citizens of Cook County so we can restore confidence and trust in county government. I also think, being a CPA since 1977, an MBA since 1981, being an attorney, all those kinds of credentials help to restore trust in Cook County government.
WCT: Is there anything we did not discuss that you would like to let voters know?
DB: The time is right for a proven leader with a proven track record of reform, innovation and saving taxpayer dollars, and that is why I decided to run for president of the Cook County board. We operate in the black in the Clerk of Circuit Court and I brought in $260 million in revenue without raising taxes.
I have the executive management experience, 34 years of business experience, the last 25 in management, the last nine successfully running Circuit Court of Cook County. ... People are hurting with job loss and mortgage foreclosures, and underinsured. The time is right to set our financial house in order... Also, I want to talk about my ideas of reforming the juvenile justice system, so we can shore up the foundation of our future—our children, to make sure children aren't going into that juvenile detention center and being trained to enter the adult criminal justice system. ... We can no long afford to just think outside the box, we need to create a new box, shift the paradigm of thinking for Cook County and I feel that if Barack Obama can become president of the United States, then Dorothy Brown can become the president of Cook County.
See www.friendsofdorothybrown.org .
