A bizarre standoff has developed in the office created 10 years ago to provide the City Council with independent advice on financial issues and avoid a repeat of the parking meter fiasco.
Budget Committee Chair Jason Ervin (28th) wants his colleagues to empower him to dump Kenneth Williams Sr. as the $123,000-a-year director of the Council’s Office of Financial Analysis after Williams refused to leave to make way for a director of Ervin’s choosing.
The standoff began July 14, when Williams said he was summoned to Ervin’s office and told the newly appointed budget chair was “going in a different direction, and I’m putting you on administrative leave” with pay.
“He took all my credentials and access away. I would love to come to work. I wasn’t allowed to come to work,” Williams, 50, said Wednesday.
“I enjoyed what I was doing. It was one of the best opportunities I ever had. I was denied access to come to work. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come to work. I couldn’t come to work,” he said.
Ever since then, Williams has been collecting a paycheck for doing nothing while serving out the remainder of a four-year term that ends June 1.
On Tuesday, Ervin tried to bring the stalemate to a conclusion.
After a brief executive session, he pushed a resolution through the Budget Committee that “hereby directs the removal” of Williams from the director’s job at the financial analysis office.
The resolution notes the director “may be removed at any time with or without cause by a two-thirds” vote or 34 alderpersons.
That vote had been set for Wednesday’s Council meeting, but Ervin decided to hold the matter in the Budget Committee for now.
The resolution, without saying why, states that “it has become necessary and appropriate” for Williams to be removed.
“It’s not fair. I was appointed in May during COVID. It’s a four-year term. He should honor the terms of the appointment, which ends on June 1,” Williams said.
“I’m assuming he just wanted his own people, but that’s not what this job is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a support system for the Council...It’s supposed to be a totally independent office similar to the [inspector general] where they come to me for unbiased consultation for any matter that they have regarding finances. It’s not supposed to be controlled by any one person or committee.”
Further complicating the issue is Williams’ health. He is recovering from a kidney transplant paid for with city health insurance.
Ervin refused to discuss his reasons for putting Williams on paid leave or seeking his ouster.
“The Council has the ability to move with or without cause. The reasons behind that are a personnel matter, and I don’t want to get into … the whys of that,” Ervin told the Sun-Times.
Ervin said he has not offered the job to anyone.
Asked whether he has a replacement in mind, the chairman said, “Not specifically. We’ll go through a process for that if and when the position becomes available.”
The financial analysis office was created in 2014 to provide aldermen with expert advice on fiscal issues.
For nearly two years the reform was stuck in the mud over whether former 46th Ward Ald. Helen Shiller had the independence and policy expertise to lead the office.
Shiller ultimately withdrew her name, but the office was a bust, nevertheless.
In an attempt to breathe new life into the office, sponsors pushed through a series of changes.
Instead of allowing the budget chair alone to request a financial analysis on a proposal affecting the city budget, any alderman was allowed to make that request. The office was further required to produce activity reports quarterly instead of annually.
The revised ordinance also transferred the power to hire a new director from a selection committee to the budget chair alone, provided the Council confirmed the chairman’s choice by a two-thirds vote.
Although the director would serve a four-year term, a two-thirds vote also could remove that person without cause.
Third Ward Ald. Pat Dowell, a former Budget Committee chair, then chose Williams, a former analyst in the financial analysis office, citing his “extensive experience managing government budgets.”
Williams’ resume includes stints as director of financial planning and analysis for the Chicago Housing Authority; financial research analyst and director of financial controls for Cook County and its bureau of economic development; and director of resource management and support for Chicago Public Schools.
Under Dowell, Williams said he was given the “autonomy” the ordinance demands.
“It has nothing to do with the Budget Committee. We had our own separate department, our own separate office, and Ervin is merging the two together. He moved the office...into City Hall,” Williams said. “He’s merging everything together, which is distorting the independence of the department.”
