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November 20, 2009


County Board Passes Cook County 2010 Budget

President Stroger’s fourth budget again holds line on property taxes and costs, while safeguarding vital services and winning wide range of support from Commissioners.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners overwhelmingly passed the proposed FY 2010 budget of Board President Todd Stroger late on Thursday, November 19, 2009 – the first time in almost a decade that the County Board has passed its budget before the end of the fiscal year.

The 2010 budget totals just over $3 billion in spending for operations, including about $2.3 billion in general fund spending, an increase of roughly $45 million over the 2009 fiscal year. The bulk of those new dollars will go to hire more staff in criminal justice as mandated by court orders, along with contractual commitments and some increased funding for public health and safety initiatives. Full-time employees in the general fund will be reduced by more than 700, to just over 22,000 – the first time in more than 25 years that the County’s general fund headcount has fallen to this range.

The budget includes no new taxes and holds the line on Cook County’s property tax levy at $720 million – the same amount of money the levy has collected since 1996. In real dollars, inflation over the last 13 years has actually cut the purchasing power of those dollars by more than 40%. County finance staff expect the County’s bond rating to remain solid in the wake of passage of this budget, as well. All three major rating agencies recently reaffirmed Cook County’s standard rating, including Standard and Poors, which continues to rate Cook County debt at "double-A.”

The budget was passed at the County’s current 1.75% sales tax rate, a rate that continues to exempt vital goods like groceries and medicines from the tax. The full impact of the recent half-penny rollback won’t be felt until Fiscal Year 2011, when it is expected to reduce the County’s revenue stream by roughly $200 million, on top of an already estimated shortfall of tens of millions of dollars for the County’s healthcare system, which benefited from a series of one-time payments and reimbursements for the 2010 budget cycle that will disappear after next year.

Click to link to President Stroger's November 19, 2009 Press Release on the passage of the FY 2010 Appropriation. 

The 2010 Executive Budget Recommendation documents are available online on the Department of Budget and Management Services site.  

The final, approved FY 2010 Appropriation Bill will be posted as soon as it becomes available. Appropriation Bills from prior years can be found on theBureau of Finance website.