A Chicago office of inspector general report alleges a high-ranking official of a previous mayoral administration used their city title to get a job for their child with a city contractor, then tried to secure nearly $10 million in payments to the contractor.
A top mayoral aide for Mayor Brandon Johnson stated the onetime official referred to in the report worked for former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration.
At an unrelated news conference Wednesday, Johnson said the former senior mayoral aide is from a “previous mayoral administration” and that he is doing things differently.
A spokesperson for Lightfoot said the former mayor “had not been previously made aware of this investigation, and has not received any communication from the OIG.”
“The allegations in question must be treated with the utmost seriousness,” the spokesperson for Lightfoot said.
Outgoing Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s quarterly report, released Wednesday, said the former senior staff member tried to increase the scope of the contractor’s work for the city after that contractor hired their child for a paid internship. The staffer also allowed the contractor to perform unauthorized work for the city, the OIG report found.
Witzburg’s report also stated that the mayoral staffer, whom she did not name, “attempted to facilitate $9.6 million in payments to the contractor to which the contractor was not entitled.”
The $9.6 million in invoices sent from the contractor to the city included false claims and “intentional and negligent billing irregularities,” and they did not comply with the city’s procurement procedures, the OIG report said.
The former staffer and the president of the contractor discussed the invoices with the city Law Department, the OIG report found, but details of the talks weren’t disclosed. The contractor’s identity, and its president, were also not disclosed in the report.
The OIG report found both the former staff member and the contractor violated several portions of the city’s governmental ethics ordinance, including fiduciary duty, unauthorized use of city property, action on behalf of relatives and offering, receiving and soliciting gifts or favors.
Witzburg sent the case to the city’s Board of Ethics, which found probable cause that the former staffer and the contractor each violated the governmental ethics ordinance.
The city’s Department of Procurement Services has begun preliminary debarment proceedings against the contractor, according to the OIG report.
Witzburg did not say whether she referred the case to the U.S. attorney’s office.
“I think situations where people use the authority of a city position to benefit themselves personally — we should all be concerned about those cases,” Witzburg said. “It’s a tremendous privilege to work in the public service, and public servants owe it to the taxpayers to serve the city’s interest first.”
Contributing: City Hall reporter Fran Spielman