Cook County Board Chair Toni Preckwinkle unveiled her $9.89 billion 2025 budget proposal Wednesday, closing a projected $218 million budget gap without tax or fee increases , program reductions or layoffs.
“I think it’s fair to say it’s good budget news,” Preckwinkle told reporters at a press briefing Wednesday afternoon, ahead of his official budget speech Thursday morning.
Preckwinkle wasn’t fazed earlier this summer when he described the gap for 2025, which was a small percentage of the county’s overall budget. This year’s cuts are limited to the elimination of 56 vacant positions, but no layoffs. Most were positions funded by federal pandemic relief, county officials said.
An increase in some revenues and a reshuffling of remaining county general fund funds from the 2023 budget helped close the $218 million gap. In total, Preckwinkle’s 2024 proposal represents a $628 million increase over this year’s.
Preckwinkle’s proposal includes replenishing the county’s $110 million emergency response fund, which is on track to be half depleted by the end of the year. About $40 million was dedicated to helping the city of Chicago feed migrants living in shelters, while another $20 million went to suburban municipalities hit by natural disasters or otherwise helping to meet the needs of migrants.
Across-the-board raises of 5 percent for county employees helped close this year’s gap. These increases are expected to cost nearly $100 million, while associated health and pension payments would increase by nearly $50 million. But vacancies, particularly at Cook County Health, persisted. County officials estimated there were 3,700 vacancies countywide.
“My daughter is a nurse and I know that in this environment, every health system she has been associated with has had real staffing challenges and has relied on agency staff to meet their needs,” said Preckwinkle, but “things have improved this year, both on the non-health and health care side.
Projections for future years show that deficits remain relatively small: the county’s projected health and general fund deficit for 2026 is $112.5 million, and for 2027, $122.3 million .
The end of the year also marks Preckwinkle’s last opportunity to commit $167 million in federal pandemic dollars or risk losing them.
Cook County received about $1 billion through the American Rescue Plan Act state and local relief program. Federal authorities have not only asked recipients to budget where they will spend their money, but have also put legal agreements in place to reflect the same before December 31 this year.
Chief financial officer Tanya Anthony guaranteed all funds would be committed by the end of the year. “No, we’re not going to lose any of them.”
In the more than three years since ARPA funds arrived, only $312 million has been spent so far of the roughly $800 million earmarked for community programs – rather than County Operations – according to the County ARPA Dashboard.
Both Preckwinkle and Anthony defended the county’s seemingly slow pace of federal spending.
The county spent a year talking with staff, county commissioners, advocates and voters, and developed a plan “before spending a dollar” on community programs, Preckwinkle said. Other cities and counties in worse financial shape could have spent more quickly to complete their operations.
“It takes time to get 73 programs up and running,” Anthony said. “By the end of this year, we will have everything sorted and we will see a significant increase in our rate of spending. When we look at our peers across the country who have allocated money to community programs and not just operations, we are all pretty much on par.
In anticipation of the “fiscal cliff” that will occur after the December 31, 2026, federal “use it or lose it” deadline, the county has set aside $166 million in non-ARPA dollars to continue funding or phase out a portion of the budget. community programs started by Preckwinkle.
“We plan well in advance,” Anthony said.
The fiscal future of the city and Chicago Public Schools is much murkier: Mayor Brandon Johnson faces a nearly $1 billion deficit in 2025, and Chicago Public Schools continues to haggle over how to pay teachers’ raises and pensions. Any additional debt or expenses put pressure on future revenue sources that the county could tap if it struggles. When asked whether their growing deficits cast a shadow over the county’s relatively sunny fiscal outlook, Preckwinkle declined to comment. “I stay in my lane.”
