If the city of Chicago and Cook County need a way to help alleviate their budget concerns, they should explore their past and rekindle a joint relationship, according to an article on the Better Government Association (BGA) website.
The idea of teaming up to address budget concerns happened in 2011, when Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and at-the-time newly elected Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle formed a joint committee, looking at ways the city and county might work together and save each of them money, Rachel L. Leven, policy manager for the BGA, said in the article.
In three years of work, during which the committee made 19 recommendations with two follow-up reports, they achieved nearly $71 million is savings and new revenue for the city and county. However, in 2014 the committee was disbanded, and while communication between the city and county remained, no direct efforts were made to resume the effort, the article states.
With Cook County facing a $200 million budget deficit and Chicago itself expected to have one nearing $115 million, the BGA feels that renewing the effort could be a big help, both by coming up with new ideas, as well as resuming the effort on previous ideas that were abandoned, the article states.
"A new official joint committee in 2018 could renew energy, ensure that the collaborative programs that were put in place have continued, look back at recommendations that were left on the table, and find additional opportunities to collaborate between the city, county, and even other sister agencies," Leven wrote.
The BGA cited previous ideas for how combined efforts between the city and county could save both some money. Among those are combining Cook County's information service with Chicago's 311 system (which a 2012 report by the joint committee suggested would save $100,000 a year, but didn't make sense fiscally and maintenance-wise), combining election services to where both city and county would be operated by the Cook County clerk (the two already share some equipment, but there are concerns about having Chicago's elections run by Cook County officials that are elected themselves), and combining certain animal services such as rabies certification and other license requirements, the article states.
One of the key ideas the BGA has is annexing all unincorporated areas into the nearest municipality, including the city of Chicago. Unincorporated townships cost Cook County nearly $19 million in 2016, according to the Civic Federation, and Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer recently said that Cook County can only recover about 50 percent of that money, the article states. While the county cannot currently compel unincorporated townships to join the county, they are currently effecting operational changes that would make it more enticing to do so.
A similar issue that could lead to savings for Cook County, according to the article, is the county absorbing a number of special service districts, providing services such as mosquito abatement, sanitation services, and fire protection to specific areas only. As far back as 2003, the County Commission has been looking at re-absorbing these areas as a way to increase efficiency and bring down costs. A Civic Federation report from 2017 listed 21 independent sanitary districts and 33 fire protection districts in Cook County.
The final suggestion made by the report is that both agencies, especially Cook County, look internally for opportunities to consolidate services and eliminate inefficiencies.
"Looking for internal efficiencies is difficult, in part, because most agencies are led by elected officials and any loss of resources represents a loss of power for them," Leven said. "Still, there is no better time than the present to identify ways agencies and governments can collaborate, if not by joining offices, then on procurement, capital and administrative costs."
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