Cook County Board commissioners are considering adding a new $100 million fund to their roughly $9 billion proposed budget next year that would be earmarked for “disaster response and recovery,” which includes the arrival of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers.
About $70 million in that fund would be set aside to provide medical care for migrants. That’s in addition to money already budgeted next year to treat this population, proposed 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 thousands of migrants arriving, to overwhelming rain and flash flooding over the summer and fall.
Managing the disasters “comes certainly at a significant cost,” Berger said, adding that the county’s most vulnerable residents are disproportionately affected by disasters and disproportionately at risk.
The county can recoup costs when the federal government declares a disaster, but even then federal officials don’t always reimburse the county 100% for what it spends, Berger said. And the process can be slow, with much-needed money trickling in.
Sometimes, the county doesn’t qualify for reimbursement. Take the flash flooding in July that soaked basements in Cicero, Berwyn and the West Side of Chicago, for example. Schools took on water, flooded roadways were blocked, and workers in suburban communities racked up overtime collecting wet carpet, furniture and other items residents left on their curbs to pick up, Berger said. Managing all of that was expensive, he said.
“Unfortunately, our communities had to bear all of those costs on their own with no additional cost recovery or financial support,” Berger said.
But now, he said, they might have access to faster help through the $100 million fund, which would be paid for with reserves. The county is still working on the details for how suburban governments would request money from the fund.
The 17-member county board is slated to consider the disaster response and recovery fund when commissioners vote on the proposed roughly $9 billion county budget for 2024 on Thursday. If approved, the budget takes effect Dec. 1.
This special set aside was a last-minute add to the proposed budget. County Board President Toni Preckwinkle was already planning to tap about $166 million in reserves to continue some programs the county created with federal pandemic relief dollars after that lifeline runs out in a few years.
She also was bracing to pay more in health care costs as more than 20,000 migrants and asylum seekers mostly from South and Central America have arrived in the last year. The county’s hospital and clinic network, Cook County Health, is one of the biggest public health systems in the nation and is the main health care provider for migrants.
There are no new taxes, fees or hikes of any kind — nor layoffs of county employees — on the table in 2024.
Kristen Schorsch covers public health and Cook County for WBEZ. Follow her @kschorsch.
