Politics

No Tax Hikes or Layoffs Needed to Close Cook County’s $550M Gap Thanks to ‘Budget Magic’: Preckwinkle

Cook County will not need to hike property taxes, lay off employees or impose new fees to close a projected budget gap of $550.8 million in 2027, after some “budget magic” by the county’s finance team, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said Wednesday.

Preckwinkle is scheduled to unveil a $9.69 billion spending plan for 2027 at Thursday’s meeting of the Board of Commissioners that closes a $336 million gap in its general fund and a $214.7 million gap in its health fund without asking residents to pay more to fund Cook County government.

“This budget magic … we’re only able to do this once,” Preckwinkle told reporters during a Wednesday news conference in advance of her budget address. “We are sweeping the cupboards bare. Once you’ve done that, you have to look for other resources.”

Future years will be even tougher, Preckwinkle warned.

“This is a challenging year,” said Preckwinkle, who will ask Cook County voters for another four years in office in less than a month. “Next year will be even more challenging.”

Cook County Health, which relies on federal funding, is looking at a particularly bleak financial future after the Trump administration slashed spending on healthcare for low- and moderate-income Americans, Preckwinkle said. 

The health and hospitals system expects its revenue to drop by $138 million in 2027 even as its costs rise by $100 million as more uninsured residents seek care, officials said. Thousands of Cook County residents will no longer have health insurance in 2027 under the Affordable Care Act, while thousands more will lose Medicaid coverage under new federal laws.

Preckwinkle called those changes “cruel.”

After cutting health expenses as much as possible, Preckwinkle’s budget, which now heads to the Cook County Board of Commissioners for approval or amendment, uses $40 million in property tax revenue to plug some of the gap, records show.

The county’s budget is once again being pinched by an expensive lawsuit the county lost over its infrastructure spending and increasing personnel costs, Preckwinkle said. 

Lawyers for Cook County are appealing a ruling by a Cook County Circuit Court judge in January that found the way officials spent hundreds of millions of transportation tax funds in 2023 violated a state constitutional amendment designed to ensure tax revenues collected from gas, parking lots, garages and car purchases are spent only on infrastructure projects.

That ruling added $258 million to the county’s 2027 budget gap, officials said.

Preckwinkle’s proposed budget does not include any new programs or initiatives but increases spending on public safety by $150 million as compared with the 2026 budget, records show. There were 321 homicides in Chicago as of Sept. 30, 3% fewer during the same period in 2025 and 29% fewer than in the first nine months of 2024, according to Chicago Police Department data.

Preckwinkle’s proposed budget also eliminates 50 vacant positions, and dips into the county’s reserves, records show.

It also uses $61.2 million set aside to fund social-safety net programs in 2029 and 2030 to prevent deep cuts in 2027, records show.

The county’s budget is also being buoyed by $88 million it earned in interest on the nearly $1 billion it got from the federal government to help it recover from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2023, records show.

Preckwinkle acknowledged that officials won’t be able to dip into the county’s savings accounts in future years. The 2027 spending plan from Preckwinkle relies on $18 million from its pension stabilization fund and an additional $53.8 million from a fund set aside to cover the county’s debt, records show.

“Reserves were built for times just like this,” Preckwinkle said, noting that she would look to repay those funds with new revenue.

Preckwinkle will face Libertarian Michael Murphy on Nov. 3 in her bid to win a record-tying fifth term in office. No Republicans challenged Preckwinkle, and a member of the Libertarian Party has never won county-wide office.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

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