Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered an outside firm to conduct a forensic audit of the city’s workers’ compensation program as it was run under Ald. Ed Burke. Burke recently resigned as chairman of the Finance Committee after being accused of attempted extortion.

The program is being transferred from the City Council Finance Committee, to being run by the Department of Finance run by a mayoral appointee. The program used to be exempt from investigatory purview by the city inspector general’s office but will no longer be exempt.

Chicago’s $100 million-dollar workers’ comp program will be evaluated and any changes that are made will be made before the city elects a new mayor in the spring, as the new mayor will have the ability to appoint someone to run the department now in charge of the workers’ comp program.

The audit will evaluate the program’s practices and resource management, identifying potential waste, fraud or abuse. Emanual said that he hopes to have an independent report within 60 days of selecting an outside firm to investigate it.

Inspector General Joe Ferguson said that if the report finds any illegal dealings, that information will be turned over to the United States Attorney’s office. Summary results will be made public, the only redactions made would be to medical records or anything that might be related to an investigation stemming from the findings, said Ferguson.

The workers’ comp program has come under suspicion before, several investigations have exposed holes in the program that allowed favoritism.

Read more from the Chicago Sun Times.