On November 8, 2016, the Cook County electorate voted on the binding referendum to merge the Office of the Cook County Recorder of Deeds and the Office of the Cook County Clerk. The Cook County Board of Commissioners voted in June 2016 to present the referendum question to Cook County residents on the general election ballot. The merging of the offices will take place by December 7, 2020. Of the…
The Civic Federation supports Cook County’s proposed FY2017 budget of $4.4 billion because it is reasonable, including expenditure reductions and revenue measures that will balance the County’s budgets through FY2019. The FY2017 budget includes a number of initiatives to close a preliminary deficit of $174.3 million. The full report also discusses Federation support for the realignment of staff…
The Civic Federation recently released a report that examines unincorporated areas in Cook County. This report builds on an earlier report released by the Civic Federation in 2014 by providing a comprehensive analysis of all unincorporated areas in Cook County as well as recommendations to assist the County in eliminating unincorporated areas. In the report, the Civic Federation presents findings…
The west portion of Cook County includes the following nine Townships: Cicero, Leyden, Lyons, Norwood Park, Oak Park, Proviso, River Forest, Riverside and Stickney. Six of these townships have unincorporated areas. The exceptions are Cicero, Oak Park and River Forest Townships, which are coterminous with a municipal government. The report does not …
As part of the Civic Federation's report, Unincorporated Cook County: A Profile of Unincorporated Areas in Cook County and Recommendations to Facilitate Incorporation, profiles of the unincorporated areas in Cook County's North, West and South regions were compiled. Understanding more about the unique characteristics of these areas will help County and municipal officials, as well…
This report provides a comprehensive examination of all unincorporated areas in Cook County. It builds extensively on a 2014 report by the Civic Federation and includes final recommendations on how the County can improve general management of unincorporated areas, work with local governments to improve future planning efforts and reduce the subsidy provided to unincorporated residents…
This report provides estimates of the total market value of real property in Cook County from 2005-2014 and shows how property value is spread among the City of Chicago, the northern and the southern suburbs. The full market value of real estate in Cook County was approximately $499.1 billion in tax assessment year 2014, an increase of $39.3 billion, or 8.5%, from the 2013 estimated full…
On June 29, 2016 the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted to approve a resolution to present a public question via a binding countywide referendum asking if the Office of the Cook County Recorder of Deeds should be eliminated and all duties and responsibilities be transferred to the Office of the Cook County Clerk. Cook County Commissioner John A. Fritchey introduced the resolution to…
On June 30, 2016, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle issued a preliminary budget for fiscal year 2017, which begins December 1, 2016 and ends November 30, 2017. The report also provided end of year estimates for fiscal year 2016. A public hearing on the preliminary FY2017 budget is scheduled for July 19, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. in the Cook County Board Room. Board President Preckwinkle…
In April 2016, the Illinois Department of Revenue announced that it discovered a misallocation totaling an estimated $168 million in extra Personal Property Replacement Taxes (PPRT) distributed to 6,527 local government taxing entities throughout Illinois. This misallocation equals 6% of the total $2.8 billion PPRT payments made to local governments in tax years 2014 and 2015. Each local…
