Better Government Association

Senate President's Stepson Gets Lucrative Contract

Sterling Awarded $11 Million In City, County, State Contracts

POSTED: 7:57 pm CDT July 9, 2007
UPDATED: 8:43 pm CDT July 9, 2007

CHICAGO -- The stepson of Illinois Senate President Emil Jones was back in the news, after the Chicago Sun-Times reported on how his company received a $700,000 state contract.

NBC5 political editor and Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin reported that John Sterling's company, Synch Solutions, received the contract. The contract is a sub-contract, the details of which are almost impossible to obtain, even through Freedom of Information Act requests.

News of the contract came at a critical time for both Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Jones, who are locked in a battle with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan to produce a new state budget. Jones is a key supporter of the governor in the budget stalemate in Springfield.

In May, Unit 5 reported how Sterling's company received a $45 million no-bid contract from the City Colleges of Chicago to do IT computer work.

Now, Unit 5 has uncovered an additional $11 million in contracts for Sterling and his company coming from the city, county and state. They include a $3.5 million contract from the Chicago Department of Aviation, a $1.2 million contract from the Chicago Transit Authority, and another $1.2 million from the Illinois Tollway Authority.

The work for the CTA and Tollway were awarded through subcontracts. In addition, records show, the Chicago Public Schools also awarded Synch Solutions with a $3 million subcontract.

There is nothing illegal about the awarding of the contracts, but the fact that they are so hard to find, buried in the minutiae of contract language, some groups such as the Better Government Association have said a lack of "sunshine" is not in the best interest of state taxpayers.

Jones has said he has no idea what business deals his stepson is engaged in, but told the Sun-Times on Monday that he favored more transparency in the awarding of subcontracts, like the ones that benefited his stepson.

However, a Republican-sponsored bill to do just that has not made it out of a Democratically controlled Senate committee, and Jones controls the Democrats in the Senate with an iron hand, Marin reported.