Cook County Board opts to repost administrator job

The Cook County Board of Commissioners will return to the drawing board on the county administrator hiring process.

On Wednesday, March 12, the commissioners interviewed two candidates for the role. Beth Drost and Pat Oman answered 18 questions posed by the board during a public meeting. Several members of the public and the heads of some of the county departments were in attendance, and the meeting was viewable online.

On Thursday, March 13, the board discussed the candidates and impressions following the interviews. At that meeting they made the unanimous decision to hire neither candidate, and to list the job opening, again.

How the decision was reached

The board asked for feedback from the public after the interviews, both in paper form at the meeting, and through a digital form available on the county website. Several members of the public were in attendance at the public interviews, and at the time of publication the meeting had been viewed through the county’s YouTube channel over 230 times.

The board had 48 public feedback forms to review, plus, several commissioners reported receiving phone calls and emails following the interviews. They also heard from the county Management Advisory Team (MAT), which met on Wednesday after the interviews.

District 2 Commissioner Garry Gamble expressed appreciation for the “thoughtful consideration” that went into the feedback forms from the public, and the “open and honest” conversation between members of the MAT.

Ultimately, the commissioners agreed that both candidates had strengths, but also significant drawbacks.

Explaining her vote not to hire either of the current candidates, District 1 Commissioner Deb White raised concerns over the candidates’ records. Candidates had the opportunity in their application to provide a disclosure statement to explain potential gaps in their employment history, or to provide additional context for situations that may have had media coverage.

White implied that the candidates did not provide enough information in their application material. “I believe that each of the candidates eliminated themselves by their omissions on their application. From information that had come to me, accurate information after the fact, that’s something that I feel maybe should have been addressed,” she said. “That shows me that a couple of things. Either you don’t have the self-confidence to explain why something that seems bad, or you know, true or not, is out there in social media, to just state what it is. And so that’s kind of dishonest. And we need honesty.”

Several county employees told WTIP, as background, that they had concerns over Oman’s work record as a county administrator elsewhere in the state. Since 2021 he has both resigned abruptly from his role as Mille Lacs County Administrator, and was removed from his position as Becker County Administrator by that county’s board.

Reposting the job

Mills advocated reposting the position, and potentially compressing the process, to minimize the chance of losing candidates simply because of the hiring timeline. He also pointed to the recent federal layoffs as a factor that could impact who would apply for the role if it were reposted. Mills suggested that there may now be a greater pool of people with administrative leadership experience who are currently seeking new positions.

District 4 Commissioner Ann Sullivan supported reposting with a shorter timeline, adding, “We had some very highly qualified candidates, but we never got them here for interviews.” Several of the candidates initially identified as the board’s top choices withdrew their applications during the hiring process after taking jobs in other counties.

In the interim

The MAT also included in their statement that they hoped the board would consider how to offer support to Interim Administrator Rowan Watkins and the staff in the administrator’s office. Watkins initially took on the role in October of 2024 when former Administrator James Joerke took leave after the sudden death of his spouse.

Watkins’s original commitment was for up to 12 weeks, which would have covered the leave that Joerke was entitled to through the Family and Medical Leave Act. He expressed during the meeting on March 13 that he hopes the board will consider arranging for someone else to take on the interim role to allow him to return to his position as head of the Management Information Systems (MIS) department.

The board has indicated their intention to find a new interim administrator while they begin the search anew for a permanent replacement for Joerke.

Kirsten Wisniewski March 13, 2025