Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg says mayor has "tremendous room for improvement" in cooperating with probes

After four years on the job, Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg's last day on the job was on Friday, as she spent her last day overseeing an office responsible for rooting out corruption, waste, and abuse in city government.

Nearly 12,000 tips and complaints a year flowg through the inspector general's door, nearly double from when Witzburg took over the post in 2022.

"I think that's a good news story. I don't think that that's because more things are going wrong in city government. I think that's because more people know who we are, and what we do, and where to find us," she said.

Her team can be found all over Chicago; from O'Hare International Airport, where they uncovered workers drinking on the job, leading to firings and policy changes, to Chicago Police Department headquarters, where her office uncovered why some investigations are under-investigated and some employees are scamming federal programs to line their own pockets. 

At City Hall, Witzburg's team pressed Mayor Brandon Johnson to fire a top advisor for failing to cooperate with a misconduct probe – which the mayor refused to do – and urged him to make public a gift room her investigators were denied access to, which Johnson agreed to do. She's also pushed Johnson to be more transparent about hiring practices. 

The mayor said he doesn't believe Witzburg has given him a fair shake during his time in office.

"I'm a middle child. I've given up on fairness a long time ago," he said.

Witzburg said Johnson's campaign promises of improved transparency in the mayor's office don't match his actions since he took office.

"I have a lot of respect for the things that Mayor Johnson had to say as a candidate about his commitment to effective and independent oversight," she said. "Everyone who has ever run for public office, people campaign in poetry and govern in prose. The real bureaucratic realities of running a government are different than those of campaigning, and everyone is entitled to some grace on that.  That said, I think there is tremendous room for improvement in the administration's cooperation with oversight."

Witzburg said she hopes her successor keeps the independence of the office as a North Star and that the calls and tips keep rolling in.

"Chicagoans, in fact, expect better than what they've always gotten from their city government," she said.

Johnson has pushed back on Witzburg's criticisms, saying her time as inspector general has politicized the office, damaging its independence and credibility.