Biz agencies applaud Cook budget

Two business-oriented agencies came out in support of the $3 billion budget proposed by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

The Civic Federation commended Preckwinkle “for starting the long-overdue process of reforming Cook County operations,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Chicago-based government watchdog.

While the group still has concerns about the county’s financial future, Msall said it is “encouraged by the new administration’s work to right-size a unit of government that has long been plagued by mismanagement and bloat.”

Msall cheered the 16 percent cuts on average imposed on county departments and the 7 percent staffing reduction countywide as “necessary to begin the stabilization of this government.”

Msall did raise red flags about the county’s pensions, which he called “unsustainable,” and said work on the 2012 budget should begin immediately after the 2011 budget is passed at the end of the month — something Preckwinkle has already promised.

Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Roper likewise applauded Preckwinkle’s budget proposal for “making the difficult decisions to rein in spending and make the cuts that so many businesses and residents in Cook County have made during the past few years.”

Roper, however, raised issue with the $41 million one-time windfall the county is receiving in returned tax-increment-finance-district funds from Chicago, and echoed that the county would have to address that immediately with its next fiscal-year budget.

Preckwinkle’s budget had to close what she called a $487 million deficit inherited from the Todd Stroger administration, in part from $160 million lost in the partial rollback of Stroger’s 1-percentage-point increase in the sales tax.

The board heard complaints from the Illinois Retail Merchants Association over new demands for monthly reporting to close loopholes in gas and alcohol tax collections, but the finance committee passed the measures regardless in a package of revenue ordinances as part of the ongoing budget process.

The county board is aiming to pass the budget Feb. 25, after approving the forest preserve district budget Feb. 23. Both need to be passed by the end of the first quarter of the fiscal year at the end of the month.