Cook County promotes interactive budget website

Cook County has unveiled an interactive budget website in conjunction with the recent release by Board President Toni Preckwinkle of the county's fiscal year 2021 budget recommendation.

It includes interactive charts and graphs of budget data, with the ability to filter and sort information to provide detailed insight on county expenditures, revenues, grants and infrastructure spending.

Visitors can download tables of underlying data on the Cook County Open Data Portal. The new site also includes data going back to fiscal year 2018 to allow visitors to compare current revenues and expenditures with historical numbers. The site is at tinyurl.com/y6463ghk. More information on the website is at budget.cookcountyil.gov.

Despite the pandemic, the $6.9 billion budget recommendation doesn't increase taxes or cut critical services, Preckwinkle said.

It closed a $222.2 million gap in the general fund with rainy day savings, expenditure holdbacks, federal relief, higher revenue and keeping jobs vacant. It also includes a supplemental pension payment of more than $300 million to continue the reduction of the unfunded pension liability.