By Fran Spielman
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — Chicago’s inspector general fired back on Monday against an independent arbitrator who overturned firings and suspensions in a Fire Prevention Bureau where padding mileage expenses was so entrenched and condoned, it was “almost a work rule.”
“The idea that stealing, fraudulent falsification of official records and lying is acceptable because everyone else is doing it is patent nonsense. Any child knows better,” Inspector General Joe Ferguson wrote in a statement released Monday.
Ferguson said the rampant mileage padding that prompted him to recommend that all 54 firefighters be fired did not arise out of some “technical violation of some obscure and misunderstood” city rule.
Those accused “admitted to routinely and systematically lying in order to steal money” from the Chicago taxpayers, the inspector general said.
“That conduct is also criminal. ... It cannot be excused just because supervisors as equally `culturally challenged’ as their charges found it acceptable,” Ferguson wrote.
“The Chicago Fire Department has a long and proud history. ... However, bravery in service to the public does not put them above the law, or excuse them from their moral and fiduciary obligation to the people of this city. ... When government allows those who steal taxpayers’ money to keep their taxpayer-funded jobs, we do grievous damage to the public trust.”
Arbitrator Edwin H. Benn ruled last week that padding mileage expenses was so entrenched and condoned in Chicago’s Fire Prevention Bureau, it was “almost a work rule.”
Benn said there is “no real dispute” that all of the accused Chicago firefighters “knowingly submitted inaccurate mileage reimbursement reports and obtained compensation for mileage — ranging in some cases into the thousands of dollars — that they did not actually incur.”
But, because the practice of submitting the maximum amount allowable for mileage reimbursement instead of actual expenses incurred was so long-standing and pervasive, he overturned the city’s firing of four of the accused firefighters and dramatically reduced lengthy suspensions for 44 others.
Benn also unloaded on Ferguson, whose mass firing recommendation was overruled by then-Fire Commissioner Robert Hoff.
The arbitrator said Ferguson’s “draconian” discliplinary recommendations “demean and denigrate” the Fire Department and all of its members. He compared Ferguson to the Queen of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland” who liked to say, “Off with their heads.”
On Monday, Ferguson said he would make the same mass-firing recommendation tomorrow.
“If the arbitrator thinks I owe some sort of apology for recommending that employees who are proven to be liars and thieves be terminated, let me dispel that delusion. No apology is necessary and none will be forthcoming,” he wrote.
“And if the arbitrator or anyone else thinks I am going to back down from investigating other city employees who lie and steal or from recommending their termination if the evidence supports it, let me be crystal clear. I will not.”
Last week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration defended its decision not to appeal Benn’s ruling.
Emanuel stressed that he has zero-tolerance for corruption or wrongdoing of any kind and has taken some sort of disciplinary action in response to all 32 of the inspector general’s reports.
But, he said, “You have to ... look at the facts, then use your judgment of what’s appropriate.”
The mayor could not resist taking a shot at the inspector general with whom he has engaged in a power struggle, just as former Mayor Richard M. Daley did.
“There are good people working throughout city government. ... Just because somebody issued a report, just because somebody [recommended] taking action, don’t everybody with baited breath wait for scalps. They may get their financial renumeration, [but] where do they go to get their reputation back?” Emanuel said.
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