Money Matters in Cook County

By Kevin Robinson in News on Feb 23, 2009 4:20PM

By a vote of 14-3 the Cook County Board of Commissioners approved a compromise budget of $2.9 billion that includes no new taxes and no borrowing for operations. The budget tha commissioners approved also denies about $37 million in spending that Stroger requested, and cuts health care spending by about two percent. Commissioners also agreed to spend an additional $294 million by the end of 2010 to fund construction projects and technology upgrades. That spending will require additional borrowing. Left unresolved is $104 million in employee pension costs. Those costs are a left over lump sum payment from a 2007 special employee buyout. Because the budget compromise rejects Stroger's plan to borrow $260 million to finance insurance and court costs, as well as the pension payments, future interest payments of $214 million were averted.

Commissioner Forrest Claypool, who is weighing another run for board president in 2010, said that while the county budget is still bloated and in need of reform, it didn't include brutal cuts or tax increases. "The administration's plan to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to pay operating costs has been defeated," he told the Tribune. "It is not in this budget. That is a good thing." Two Chicago Democrats, Jerry "Iceman" Butler and Mike Quigley voted against the budget, but for different reasons. Quigley opposed the budget because he feels the entire county budget needs to be overhauled; Butler says that the county health care system is being "raped" by the cuts.

AP Photo / M. Spencer Green