Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle talks during a Feb. 10 press conference about the $66 million that the state owes the county for program costs and rent. Looking on is Commissioner John Daley, chairman of the county’s Finance Committee. (Photo by Kevin Beese/for Chronicle Media)

A tenant not paying rent is always a risk for a landlord, but when your tenant writes checks for $66 billion annually you normally don’t ask for references.

Cook County officials have said that the state of Illinois owes the county millions of dollars for fiscal years 2014-15 and 2015-16, including $1.4 million in rent.

“We are looking at the money we need to spend and the money the state has held up” due to the budget impasse, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said.

The board president and County Board have instructed the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office to investigate means, including litigation, that can be taken to recoup the money due from the state.

The state is holding $66.1 million from this fiscal year alone that is rightfully due to the county, Preckwinkle noted, including rent for offices at the George W. Dunne Cook County Office Building, 69 W. Washington St., Chicago.

State tenants at the 36-story, 720,979-square-foot county facility include the Chicago Loop Express Secretary of State facility.

Cook County and the state are on different fiscal years, adding to the confusion of just how much the state owes the county.  The county’s fiscal year runs from Dec. 1-Nov. 30.  The state’s fiscal year runs from July 1-June 30.

For the county’s current fiscal year, the state owes its fellow government $66.1 million, according to Preckwinkle.

“We realize we have to continue programs,” the board president said, noting that every dollar, including the money due from the state, is vital for the county these days.

Because the state’s rent money comes from Illinois’ general fund and that money has not been released via court mandate the way other state expenses have been, the county is not getting paid.

Preckwinkle said that the county could soon have to start cutting positions dependent on state funding, if that money doesn’t start flowing into Cook County coffers.

She cited the county’s child support enforcement which is due $8.6 million in reimbursement from the state as one area that could feel the ax. The state would even get 70 percent of that child support enforcement money back from the federal government, but that only occurs when the state first pays its 30 percent of the bill.

Preckwinkle added that Adult Redeploy, a state program in which individual counties assist nonviolent ex-offenders, is owed $1.9 million.

“It is a program the governor mentioned in his State of the State address,” Preckwinkle noted.

Gov. Bruce Rauner had called for not just saving the program, but increasing its funding to help ex-offenders

“We will also continue to invest in Adult Redeploy,” Rauner said in his address last month. “Since its implementation in 2011, Adult Redeploy has diverted more than 1,900 offenders into community-based programming. Congratulations to all of you in the legislature who supported Adult Redeploy. Let’s continue to build on these corrections reforms.”

— State owes the county money for rent, programs —