Changing the culture at the Secretary of State’s office

Secretary of State Inspector General Jim Burns (center) visits with Princeton Driver's License facility workers Pam Parker (from left) and Fran Peterson. Burns was at the facility Wednesday as part of a statewide tour to meet with employees and the press about efforts to eliminate corruption in the department. (By Barb Kromphardt)

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

PRINCETON — Secretary of State Inspector General Jim Burns didn't arrive at the driver license facility in Princeton last week to make a speech or shake a lot of hands.

Burns said he was there to remind both employees and the public of how times have changed since he took the position more than nine years ago.

“It was the year 2000,” Burns said. “’Safe Road’ was going full blast in Chicago with indictments, and the institution was just taking a beating from the George Ryan days.”

Operation Safe Road was the federal investigation into the licenses for bribes scandal that arose after six of the Rev. Scott and Janet Willis’ children were killed in a car crash when debris from a truck driven by an improperly licensed driver struck the family’s van. Eventually there were 79 defendants, including more than 30 current or previous Secretary of State employees.

Burns said he took the position after making an agreement with Secretary of State Jesse White, who was elected 1998. The agreement gave the inspector generals the tools and the independence they would need to clean up the office.

Burns was just completing a recent tour of all the state’s drivers facilities, something he’s done for several years to build relationships with the employees.

This visit had an additional purpose in the light of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was removed from office in January.

“What we wanted to talk about this year is — what with corruption being the soup de jour — what we’ve seen in Illinois, we wanted to remind our employees and the public of what we view as a change of culture in the Secretary of State’s system,” Burns said.

Burns said the change of culture began by attacking corruption in any criminal cases that could be made, and then by dealing with any employee’s “bad behavior” that violated the personnel code. Now the culture change is maintained by being both proactive and preventative, conducting audits and special reports to look for vulnerabilities or inefficiencies in the system.

Burns said they need to continually reinforce, with both employees and the public, that Secretary of State employees are expected to do their jobs professionally, and that everyone is responsible for reporting any violations.

“Don’t be afraid to rock the boat,” he said. “If you see bad conduct, you can trust us. Call us. That’s our job.”

In talking with employees, Burns said the situation with Blagojevich has had little impact.

“It makes them feel good,” he said. “They feel like ‘We’re doing it the right way. That doesn’t
bother us because that’s not us.’”

Burns said some public officials are afraid of going after problems because of the negative publicity, but that’s not the case in the Secretary of State’s office.

“If you get overly-sensitive, then you don’t really do the right thing, going after it the right way because you’re afraid of any criticism that is going to be negative,” he said. “You can’t reform a system that doesn’t start at the top.”

Burns said there will always be a few problems, but that most government employees work hard and want to do a good job. So after visiting with the media, he walked around the facility, talking with the employees about how things were going. He also offered a few pats on a few backs.

“I’ve told all the facility people as we were leaving ‘Keep up the good work. Keep it going,’” Burns said.

Comment on this story at www.bcrnews.com.