All Week Long
Originally published on chicagotribune.com 11/16/23
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s $9.26 billion budget for 2024 unanimously cleared its final hurdle Thursday, free of new taxes, fines and fees.
But while the 17-0 vote was marked by kind words from commissioners, the Chicago area’s continuing migrant crisis took center stage, thanks to a late budget amendment setting aside $100 million dedicated almost entirely to asylum-seekers’ health care.
“Whatever tomorrow and the day after may bring, this fund is aimed at increasing the county’s capacity to compassionately respond to emergencies,” Preckwinkle said shortly after the budget’s passage, which she said reflects “our values, priorities and principles, as well as the progress we’re making.”
Originally published on wbez.org 11/16/23 | Photo: Ashlee Rezin / Chicago Sun-Times
The Cook County Board of Commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved a roughly $9 billion budget for next year, including a new $100 million fund earmarked for “disaster response and recovery.”
About $70 million in that fund would be set aside to provide medical care for the thousands of migrants arriving. That’s in addition to money already budgeted next year to treat this population, budget documents show. About $20 million would flow to suburbs to help cover costs related to providing services for migrants, and about $10 million would be used to help communities with other disaster response and recovery efforts, such as record-setting rainstorms that have inundated many residents’ homes.
The move comes as the county faces “an exceptional year” for disasters, said Ted Berger, executive director for the county’s emergency management and regional security department. The county managed responses to four different major disasters, from the COVID-19 pandemic to migrants arriving, to overwhelming rain and flash flooding over the summer and fall.
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