How well do voters know Melissa Conyears-Ervin?
Do you know who serves Chicago as city treasurer?
If you were handed 10 photographs of random Chicagoans — with the 11th being City Treasurer of Chicago — would voters be able to identify her?
Probably not.
Melissa Conyears-Ervin, who prior to her election as treasurer was a member of the General Assembly representing a West Side district, has been Chicago’s treasurer since 2019. Her husband is Jason Ervin; he has been the alderman of the 28th Ward since 2010 and he’s the current chairman of the City Council's Budget Committee.
The Office of City Treasurer is responsible for managing the Chicago’s $10 billion investment portfolio, as well as several municipal pension funds. Still, it is a forgettable elected post, one which should be replaced with a mayoral appointee, pending of course, City Council approval.
Typically, treasurer candidates run unopposed, as Conyears-Ervin did in 2023.
Circumstances were different in 2019 when the race for the office showcased two candidates vying for the position. Conyears-Ervin faced off against then-47th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar. The central point of his campaign was the remarkably dopey idea of the creation of a municipally owned bank. But let's isolate Pawar for his idiocy, because in a 2021 Fran Spielman Show podcast, Conyears-Ervin seemed supportive of a Chicago-owned bank.
However, Conyears-Ervin's honeymoon as treasurer was short, as Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who also was elected in 2019, yanked her Chicago Police detail.
Far from being passive about the slight, the treasurer fought back, writing in a “to whom it may concern letter:”
“While attending numerous community events in various neighborhoods, I’ve had several strangers refer to me as ‘the money lady’ or ‘the lady with the billions’ or ask me ‘to loan some of that money.’"
Even Eric Zorn, the reliable, former progressive columnist with the Tribune, was unsympathetic to Conyears-Ervins plight:
“Gosh, that sounds annoying. It requires a special level of stupidity to think that a treasurer for a city or any government agency carries around a wad of cash or is empowered to dole out discretionary checks and suggests a need for more robust civics education in our schools. But dealing with annoying and stupid people ispart of what you sign up for when you run for public office. Ask any alderman or village trustee.”
We’ll go a step further and say that Conyears-Ervin’s claim belongs in a Jeopardy category: “Give me ‘Things that never happened for $500.’”
During the tail-end of this month’s fraught Chicago budget negotiations, the Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman reported on a proposed return of the treasurer's bodyguards.
“Critics scouring the amended budget also discovered Johnson’s plan to use the water fund to bankroll a security team for City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, which had been stripped away by Mayor Lori Lightfoot. It looked to them like an attempt to curry favor with the treasurer’s husband, Budget Chair Jason Ervin.”
Of course! Use the water fund to provide security for a woman who no one recognizes. The Garfield Park Lagoon, which has copious amounts of water, is in Ervin's 28th Ward. So that makes sense, right?
Conyears-Ervin ran unopposed for treasurer last year, but 2023 turned out to be a bad year for our illustrious city treasurer.
In 2023, lawyers hired by two whistleblowers dismissed by Conyears-Ervin in 2020 alleged the treasurer committed a slew of ethical violations. Among them, according to a letter from those attorneys obtained by the Chicago Tribune, was the hiring an unqualified administrative assistant, Gina Zuccaro, who ran personal errands for the treasurer. Zuccaro, it is alleged, also purchased groceries for Conyears-Ervin and planned a birthday party for the treasurer’s daughter.
Zuccaro ran for a seat in the Illinois House in 2020, finishing a distant third in a three-candidate race. The whistleblowers’ lawyers claim Conyears-Ervin used city resources to support Zuccaro’s bid for the statehouse.
Their letter lists more ethics violations.
A former Chicago Police officer was hired by Conyears-Ervin to serve as assistant city treasurer. Curiously, the ex-police officer had no formal training or experience in finance. Instead, he served as her armed security guard and a driver. “This employee does not provide any services to the office and does not even come into the office,” the attorneys charged.
Conyears-Ervin, according to the letter, also used municipal resources to promote religious services.
After these accusations became public, the treasurer told ABC Chicago’s Craig Wall that the allegations against her, with one exception, were false. She admitted that she asked BMO Harris Bank, which conducts business with the city, to assist with obtaining a mortgage for the owner of a West Side church. The West Side church, Mount Vernon Baptist, operates from the same building at which the aldermanic office of Jason Ervin, Conyears-Ervin’s husband, is located.
This is what is referred to as a “Chicago coincidence.”
Conyears-Ervin also admitted to Wall that the Office of the Inspector General seized computers from her office. In May 2024, Ms. Conyears-Ervin was slapped with a $70,000 fine for ethics violations. Among the violations, Conyears-Ervin was found violating her fiduciary duty to Chicago for the unauthorized use of city property and engaging in prohibited political activity.
Taxpayers paid $100,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by those two whistleblowers. Remember, Chicago's treasurer is supposed to be the guardian of municipal funds.
Around the time the allegations against Conyears-Ervin became public, she announced her candidacy to unseat 82-year-old Danny K. Davis, the longtime congressman of Illinois’ 7th District. Davis clobbered Conyears-Davis in the 2024 Democratic primary, despite the enthusiastic support of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).
Did the CTU look into the sleaze surrounding Conyears-Ervin before endorsing her? Did they even care?
It is unlikely the CTU vetted Ms. Conyears-Ervin and even more unlikely they were concerned about her ethical lapses.
The CTU endorsed Conyears-Ervin over Pawar in 2019.
According to attorneys, the two whistleblowers were told by the treasurer after they expressed their concerns about her ethical lapses, that their “’as*** can walk' and that they ‘will be walking the f*** up out of here.’”
There are other problems surrounding Conyears-Ervin.
Earlier this month the Better Government Association released a budget snapshot of the treasurer’s office. What they discovered was alarming. When Conyears-Ervin took office in 2019, the annual budget of the treasurer’s office was $4 million; in 2024 that budget exceeded $6 million.
“The city treasurer’s office continues to be one of the fastest-growing departments in recent years," the BGA report stated, “excluding those receiving federal pandemic funds.” In 2019, the BGA reported, there were only 30 employees in the city treasurer's office. Now 40 people collect paychecks there. The BGA did not mention if any of those current staffers are birthday party planners.
If Conyears-Ervin chooses to run for treasurer again in 2027, let’s hope for the sake of the taxpayers there is a much better candidate opposing her. What the treasurer’s office requires is a candidate not endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union.
The office also requires someone who won’t demand a security detail.
While it is a radical thought with little chance for success, it is crucial for Chicagoans to demand that municipal funds be spent responsibly. With that in mind, perhaps instead of 40 employees, the Chicago treasurer’s office could get by with only 30 — or perhaps 20.
In 2011, only 22 employees were employed in the treasurer’s office. Even so, that was probably too many.
