democratic commissioners applauded the passage of a new budget the work of cook county president tony preckwinkle. with commissioner william beaver and the only dissenter of cook county's 2.9 $5 billion budget passes by a 16-1 vote thank you so much for your leadership and working with us to prepare a budget for our government the rest of the budget shortfall close with staff cuts in eliminating vacant positions, less overtime consolidating excess office space and reducing health-care costs, most importantly with a federal waiver on medicaid costs that will help the county's overstressed health system. this budget reduces the size of cook county government its $100 million less than our budget two years ago than when i first came into office. this budget doesn't begin to tackle the problem of unfunded pension systems. president preckwinkle says that discussions are already under way with the union and the hope is that springfield will take some action preckwinkle wants to wait and see what legislatures will do before she begins to come up with her own plan. >> there is a new public-private partne