Cook County expects to head into next year with a nearly $86 million budget gap and is still struggling to fill around 4,000 vacant jobs. While the estimated budget hole is larger than the $18.2 million gap projected this time last year, it is one of the county’s smallest deficits in the last decade.
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.