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.

That is why I have launched CookEmployees.com:  an easily searchable, online database of employees and vendors of Cook County government.

I believe in open, transparent government. I believe in the talented, hard-working employees and detest seeing all 25,000+ employees being cast in negative light because of the illegal patronage hires of the political insiders.

Who are they? What do they make?

We’ve posted the names, titles, salaries and hire dates of all of them here in a searchable database so you can find out.

This is just our latest effort to utilize technology to open up county government to the taxpayers.  Earlier this year, the county board passed our resolution to put the county check register online, and I have also introduced a resolution to form a private-sector commission to identify waste in the county budget.

I also provide “live tweets” of county board and forest preserve district board meetings at Twitter.com/TonyPeraica so that the public can see firsthand updates of the legislative process that affects their daily lives.

I urge you to visit CookEmployees.com today to see firsthand how we are shining a bright spotlight on Cook County government.