Two Cook County health officials resign amid turmoil

CHICAGO | Two high-ranking officials in the Cook County Health and Hospital System have stepped down amid financial turmoil, Interim CEO Terry Mason said Wednesday.

The system's chief financial officer, Michael Ayres, handed in his resignation on Tuesday and its director of budgeting, Kim Valesquez, decided to retire.

The dual resignations were met with surprise by the Cook County Board.

But the resignations were only the beginning of the bad news.

Cook County Comptroller Constance Kravitz presented her department's monthly financial report. Again, county revenues are below projections, falling short by $67 million through July.

Nearly all of the shortfall comes from CCHHS. Patient fees had a negative variance of $68.7 million through July. Most of that came from a shortfall in revenue at John Stroger Hospital of $58.1 million.

CCHHS continues to struggle collecting Medicare and Medicaid fees from the state of Illinois, Mason said.

This isn't the first time the county has blamed its inability to collect Medicare and Medicaid bills from the state for multimillion dollar shortfalls in revenues.

At a recent board meeting, things became contentious after Mason made a similar pronouncement. Following that meeting, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle gave Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn a public tongue lashing over this and other matters.

Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims continued her skepticism of the newly formed Governance Board over CCHHS. Sims believes the governance board adds an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that hinders the county from creating a streamlined process for bill processing.