By Hannah Meisel

* For a 94-page document, a report from the Office of the Executive Inspector General really didn’t find all that much…just seven jobs within CMS that should not have been classified as ones that could be filled from political consideration. The jobs had been filled with names recommended to CMS by the governor’s office, and the employees were hired in the year or so after Gov. Rauner was sworn into office.

The OEIG did a two-year investigation into seven jobs called “Regional Client Managers” and found that the jobs, originally created in 2004, should no longer be considered “4d(3) exempt,” which is similar to the “Rutan exempt” classification of state employee jobs. Like Rutan exempt jobs, positions classified as 4d(3) exempt can be filled using political consideration.

* When conceived of during the Blagojevich era, the Regional Client Managers were imagined as people who would oversee a bunch of state properties and make sure they were well-functioning. The original job descriptions, and even updated job descriptions years later, envisioned the managers to be fairly independent, create programming, have employees who reported to them, etc. Two examples, which explain why the positions might have been classified as exempt…

“This Client Manager works in concert with the Deputy Director on policy formulating, planning, directing, implementing and administering all property management operations for the client agencies in partnership with the agencies’ Directors.” […]

“This position serves as official agency spokesperson on behalf of the Deputy Director to all internal and external entities such as vendors, contractors, the public, and private and federal officials in the development of initiatives and the resolution of issues associated with client agencies’ property management.”

* Years later, as the OEIG investigated the seven Regional Client Manager positions, it seems most of the jobs turned into kind of glorified custodial managers. One of the people in the jobs said his duties consisted of…

- Setting up tables and chairs for special events
- Reporting the condition of conference rooms to his supervisor; and
- Monitoring inventory inside shared spaces in the Thompson Center.

A far cry from the dozens of bullet points’ worth of responsibilities the jobs were supposed to have. The annual salaries for the seven positions ranged from $51,540 to $75,000.

Does it look flattering for the governor’s office that these employees can be considered “patronage?” No. They were costing the state money, especially as the state went through a two-year budget crisis.

* But I talked to former CMS Director Mike Hoffman this afternoon, who pointed to the 2,500 former patronage jobs he and his team were able to eliminate from the state payroll and the others they reclassified to merit-based hiring. Hoffman was put in charge of efforts to help the Quincy Veterans Home in March.

“It’s frustrating to be called out for mismanagement when you’ve spent the past two years cleaning up,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman said he ultimately accepted responsibility as CMS director, and pointed out that he eliminated the positions on January 1. Also starting in January, CMS has put in place an affidavit process when supervisors do performance reviews — they’ll also have to do more consistent position description reviews so situations like these don’t happen in the future.