Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-Riverside) has created a website that includes salary, job title and department of all Cook County employees, CookEmployees.com.
Cook County taxpayers fund 25,000+ employees... lots good, some bad, to be sure.
Cook County has long had problems with illegal hiring and patronage. In fact, the county is currently spending millions to fund three federal compliance officers to monitor county hiring practices ... and yet the county has still failed to come into compliance with the law.
The website provides transparency, which will act as a counterveiling force to corruption in some cases. However, without knowing how people are connected, the data doesn't tell the full story.
