awareness month.

Cook County leaders are touting a major milestone.

Gun homicides have decreased by more than 50% since 2021.

Marking several consecutive years of decline.

Cook County Board.

President Toni Preckwinkle says those games are partly driven by the county's investments community violence prevention programs.

Last Wednesday.

The prep liquid Ministration announced an additional 20 million dollars for street outreach case management and victim services.

Joining us to break down the investment is Cook County Board.

President Toni Preckwinkle.

Welcome back.

Madam President, thanks for joining us.

You're not good evening.

So walk us through, please what?

This new 20 million dollar investment will be for.

How will it be used?

>> Well, first of all, I want to express my concern and sympathy for those who are victims of gun violence.

You know, it's a it's a terrible tragedy and impacts families and communities more broadly.

So I think we need to understand that every shooting is one too many.

We've invested a lot of money over the last 5 years in violence, prevention work, community violence, intervention in particular, having outreach workers in the streets to tamp down the violence that sometimes follows in retaliation to a shooting and to work with those who are at high risk of being involved in violence to provide them with job training, to provide them with behavioral health, supports to provide them with.

Housing.

If need be.

So we're working with a variety of of community-based organizations that are involved in violence, prevention work and the 20 million dollars was an investment in in the outreach workers who to the dangerous and difficult work of trying to tamp down violence and some of our most struggling neighborhoods.

>> We hear about that work and get a lot of it.

Madam President, we know is done by community organizations doing that sort of community violence, intervention, work.

We give us some examples of if you would up organizations that will be receiving that funding and the kind of work that they do.

>> Want to talk about the kind of work that's done.

Some of it is with those who are coming out of jail or prison to help them find a more productive path to support them in their journey to productive being productive members of the community.

Some of that goes to young people who are just as involved to try to be sure that they could.

They have the opportunity to straighten out their lives.

Some of the goes to the outreach workers that I mentioned earlier.

But the whole point of the of the investment is to try to provide wrap-around services for those who need them and might be at risk of being either the victims or perpetrators of violence.

>> of course, as we mentioned, gun homicides have decreased by more than 50% since 2021, how do we know that?

It is the the violence prevention funding and the work that you know, that gets funded by this money that that is the source of the decline.

>> Well, we we have a an academic partner in Northwestern University and Northwestern found in his research that those communities that receive the most violence intervention, investment.

So the biggest reductions in violent crime.

So we've done this work in partnership with academic researchers.

And that's what's been reported.

>> Are there geographic Lee?

Are there any neighborhoods are suburbs that are that are still a challenge?

>> Well, we have challenges across the city and county, but the point I think I would make is that there's a government alliance for safe communities, gas, and it involves the state and the city and the county.

And we're investing complimentary in a complimentary way rather than being duplicative in.

We've learned over the last 5 years.

What works?

And we're investing in what works.

>> These type of investments they were, you know, we know kick started by dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act Arpa.

And we know that.

I think it is through the end of this year that you have to spend those funds.

How much or do you believe that Cook County will be able to continue to support these efforts beyond the end of this year?

>> We've put aside money to continue to make investments in violence prevention because we know how critical it is to the communities that have been struggling with violence for so long.

So we're devoting county resources.

There's the federal funding diminished to to addressing community violence.

>> As we mentioned, you you all have been making these sort of similar investments in violence prevention since 2021, what is it about these meetings programs that let you know that you know, that they're working?

>> But we've seen this dramatic reduction in And that's that's the indication.

As I said, Northwestern University's researchers found that those communities where we invested Corey made the biggest investments.

saw largest reductions in violent crime.

So clearly there's a correlation between the investments we make in the violence reduction.

>> And while we have you, madam the county budget, your office is forecasting a 550 million dollar budget shortfall in 2027, the largest in 16 years.

And of course, a balanced budget.

A Cook county is something that that's been sort of a hallmark of your term.

There.

What would you say is the cause of that gap this time?

>> Well, first of all, I think it's important to remember that for 16 years we've balanced budgets.

We've strengthen our reserves.

We've improved our bond ratings.

We've gotten upgrades our bond ratings each year for the last 4 years.

And we're a historic product.

Progress on pension funding.

So that's put us in a good financial position to meet the president challenges.

And their challenge is not just for OS but for the city and the state as well.

Part of it is the the loss of the federal resources.

The American Rescue Plan Act resources.

As you pointed out earlier, part of it is rising costs for labor and for our pensions.

But it's also court decisions.

We've had some headfirst course decisions which have impacted.

The county potentially impacted the county significantly.

>> About 30 seconds left, what what do you think the plan might be going forward to bridge that gap?

>> But we're always going to look for efficiencies and we already instituted a call back to be sure that we meet our budget projections for 2026 and will be looking for efficiencies and to tighten our belts in in the the fiscal year.

Coming up 2027.

But it's going to be it's going to be difficult for us as it was for the state to balance our budget.

we've had a lot of experience with tough challenge.

Isn't and I know