McCook Police Chief Mario DePasquale has written letters along with Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel to Preckwinkle urging her not to make any more cuts to the State’s Attorney’s Office.

Suburban police chiefs are calling on Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to avoid making cuts in the State’s Attorney’s Office, as she has threatened due to a budget shortfall.

The chiefs note that some traffic offenses are no longer being prosecuted in the county due to a shortage in the State’s Attorney’s Office and fear additional cuts will only increase the offenses not being prosecuted and cause headaches for their departments.

The repeal of the soda tax left a hole in the county budget and Preckwinkle has called for 15 percent across-the-board cuts, including the State’s Attorney’s Office, to balance the budget.

“The office is already down 20 percent in prosecutors from 10 years ago when there were 1,000 positions,” said James Kruger, president of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police. “They are down to 770 people. If they lose 115 more, the cost will be tremendous. There will be hardships with felony review. There will be delays in prosecutors viewing evidence. It will require officers to go back and forth to court because of case delays.”

Offenses such as driving without a valid license, and driving with a suspended or revoked license, are not being prosecuted in some cases, suburban chiefs note. When individuals have their license suspended or revoked for financial reasons, such as not paying child support, parking tickets or court costs and fees, those charges are not being prosecuted, they note.

That puts officers on the street in a tough spot, according to McCook Police Chief Mario DePasquale, who is also president of the West Suburban Chiefs of Police Association.

“It’s an ethical dilemma,” DePasquale said. “We still are doing the job on our end, but we know the cases are not going to be prosecuted. What they are doing is still illegal. Do we arrest them or not?”

He said his officers in McCook are going to arrest people for the violations just like before. DePasquale said the only saving grace is that his officers are usually scheduled to be in another courtroom as well when they make court appearances so the kicking of the license cases doesn’t make court time totally unproductive for them. Some neighboring departments, he said, aren’t as lucky.

“Other departments that just have officers in misdemeanor court, those cases are just being tossed out. It’s a waste of their time all around,” DePasquale said. “It’s a terrible decision.”

DePasquale and Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel have both written letters to Preckwinkle urging her not to make any more cuts to the State’s Attorney’s Office.

Weitzel has been outspoken about the actions of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, most recently blasting the state’s attorney’s comments following the Las Vegas shootings when she said that police need to address people’s distrust of them.

“I have been at odds with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office on many issues, but the budget issue I am in full support of them. They do need the felony review assistance to be able to run their office,” Weitzel said in his letter to Preckwinkle. “I am asking that you fund the State’s Attorney’s Office at the current level at which they are funded and that you do not cut them regardless of what budget cuts may come before you.

“The criminal justice system and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office should be the last place you look for cuts. At a time in our nation when our citizens are looking for leadership in the criminal justice field, I ask if you will take a leadership position in not cutting or underfunding the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.”

The lack of prosecution on license infractions follows Foxx’s raising of the threshold for charging individuals with felony retail theft from $300 to $1,000 — trying to limit the caseloads for assistant state’s attorneys in the felony division.

“Cook County is the only county in the state doing that. The rest are at $300,” said Kruger, who is also police chief of Oak Brook. “That is a deep concern.”

Not only was the threshold raised for the dollar amount of retail theft, but Foxx said area police departments should not charge an individual with felony retail theft unless they have 10 prior felony convictions, McCook’s DePasquale said.

“Good luck getting 10 convictions on anybody,” DePasquale said.

DePasquale said the decision was made because the State’s Attorney’s Office does not have enough manpower for violent and felony cases.

“They had to pool their resources and lesser offenses took the hit when the resources got taken away,” DePasquale said.

Weitzel said cuts to the State’s Attorney’s Office would have a devastating effect on law enforcement.

“As a suburban chief of police, I can say with confidence that if any of these proposed cuts at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office go into effect, they will have a significant impact on suburban law enforcement agencies that is not sustainable,” the Riverside chief said. “For those elected officials calling for criminal justice reform, I would ask them to voice their support of the State’s Attorney’s Office and all the excellent work that they do for our criminal justice system. It is the cornerstone of reform.”

As of press time, representatives of the State’s Attorney’s Office failed to respond to a request for comment on the decision to not prosecute some cases.

Frank Shuftan, chief spokesman for the Office of the County Board President, said with so much of the county’s budget going for public safety and health, there is little else to target when cuts are needed.

“The president has been quite clear that, because almost 90 percent of the county’s budget funds public health and public safety, offices, agencies and departments within those buckets could be disproportionately affected by budget cuts now that, effective Dec. 1, the sweetened beverage tax has been repealed,” Shuftan said.

The County Board’s Finance Committee is beginning its hearings of the fiscal year 2018 budget this week. All offices, bureaus and departments will be appearing before the committee in the next few weeks. Four public hearings are planned in late October and early November (see sidebar) to get residents’ input on the spending plan.

Shuftan said that Preckwinkle has been meeting one on one with elected officials and commissioners to discuss possible steps to resolving the budget shortfall without sweetened beverage tax revenue.

“She is particularly focused on avoiding damaging cuts in public health and public safety, two key policy priorities of her administration,” Shuftan said.

—- Chiefs rally behind State’s Attorney’s Office —-