Cook County

On April 30, 2015 the dataset FY2014 Appropriations And Expenditures with FY2015 Adopted Appropriation was added to the Open Data Portal.

Cook County’s Annual Appropriation Bill Resolution requires that the Final Appropriation Trial Balance be posted as Open Data on the Open Data Portal by April 30 of each year. From the Fiscal Year 2015 Resolution (Section 21):

When all accounts and books for Fiscal Year 2014 are closed and final amounts determined, the Comptroller shall report back to the County Board with the revised revenues, fund balances and balance sheets. All appropriated amounts for Fiscal Year 2014 shall be reported as adopted by the County Board in the Annual Appropriation Bill for Fiscal Year 2014 and as subsequently adjusted by transfers of funds. Said information will be made available to the County Board and to the public via the Final Appropriation Trial Balance for 2014. The Final Appropriation Trail Balance for 2014 will be posted alongside the 2015 line item budget in a single document on the County’s website by April 30, 2015, and shall be made concurrently available on the County’s Open Data website in a format compatible with the County’s Open Government Ordinance.

Cook County TIF Boundaries Open Dataset

On April 8th Cook County GIS and the Cook County Clerk’s Office added Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District Boundaries to the Open Data Portal. The description states:

TIF District boundaries. TIF districts receive money from property taxes by utilizing increases in the value of properties located in the TIF. There is no tax rate for TIF districts. Instead, TIFs receive money based on tax rates generated by other districts’ tax levies. Money is allocated to the TIF based on the composite tax rate for properties in the TIF and the incremental value of properties in that TIF (when compared to values when the TIF was established.)

This release is a result of ongoing collaboration between Cook County GIS and the Cook County Clerk’s office as well as a dataset suggestion from the public. A Dataset Suggestion submitted on March 29th through the Socrata Data Portal Suggest a Dataset tool asked for “TIF shapes.” After consulting with the Clerk’s office the GIS Department added the TIF boundary data to the portal. TIF boundaries have been available for TIFs controlled by the City of Chicago for some time. Now, the data is available county-wide.

Dataset suggestions can be submitted through the nominate form at: https://datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov/nominate or by emailing . As part of my work on the Cook County Open Data project, I monitor the submissions to these places and help keep track of all requests.

On April 2nd, the Cook County GIS Department and Cook County Clerk’s Office added 2013 Parcel data to the Open Data Portal. This data reflects tax parcel polygons as they existed from 1/1/2013 through 12/31/2013. Each parcel is uniquely identified with a Property Index Number (PIN).

Previously, 2012 Parcel data was added to the Open Data Portal in March 2014.

Here are some Cook County Datasets updated in March 2015:

• Cook County Check Register: We worked with the Bureau of Technology and the Office of the Comptroller to update this dataset with February checks as approved by the Cook County Board of Commissioners
• Medical Examiner Burial Locations: The Medical Examiner’s Office updated information on existing burial records
• Medical Examiner Indigent Cremations: The Medical Examiner’s Office added with 33 new records
• Awarded Contracts: The Office of the Chief Procurement Officer updated the dataset with February contracts

The theme of this month’s Chicago City Data User Group was election data. Ryan Chew, the Deputy Director of Elections from the Cook County Clerk’s office, and Geetha Lingham, manager for voter and ballot data, presented on the process and data used to run elections for Suburban and Unincorporated Cook County.

Also in attendance were students from the Latin School of Chicago’s Social Justice class.

Learning about #election data with my Social Justice students! #ChiData @ChicagoCityData @LSCsja

— Bridget Hennessy (@bohennessy) March 5, 2015

@LSCsja We’re at our first Chicago City Data User Group learning about election data! #ChiData

— Neelamjit Dhaliwal (@NKDhaliwal) March 5, 2015

Ryan spoke about the process involved to maintain accurate voter registration data.

Typos matter 4 voter data!@cookcounty data masters presenting on election data @ChicagoCityData @MSFTChicago #chidata pic.twitter.com/Kd27BM93HX

— Erin Simpson (@heyerinsimpson) March 5, 2015

Geetha focused on the process used to verify addresses to assign the proper boundaries and ballot styles for each voter.

Geetha Lingham shows the data sources involved in the Voter Registration Management System

Elections uses parcel boundaries with tax codes and census information to assign political districts to the voter #chidata

— Josh Kalov (@JoshKalov) March 5, 2015

Parcel boundaries: https://t.co/xRWAj1IjqV Tax code + Agencies: https://t.co/EA7OaimYKm #ChiData @ChicagoCityData

— Josh Kalov (@JoshKalov) March 5, 2015

For more on the presentation see Chicago City Data User Group co-organizer Adam Hecktman’s blog post and watch the presentation video.

Through our partnership with Cook County we have worked with the Cook County Clerk’s Election office to add or update Open Data including:

• Election Precincts
• Polling Place Locations
• Early Voting and Grace Period Registration and Voting Locations
• Cook County Directory of Elected Officials

We look forward to working closely with the Cook County Clerk’s Office of Elections to add additional current and historical elections data.

In our work with Cook County so far we have posted or helped post 15 datasets to Cook County’s Open Data Portal. These datasets include:

• Comptroller – Annual Salaries – 2014 – August 28
• ccgisdata – Address Point Chicago
• Cook County Check Register
• Medical Examiner – Burial Locations
• Cook County Clerk – Tax Agency Rates
• Cook County Clerk – Tax code Rates
• Cook County Clerk – Tax codes, agencies, and rates
• Cook County Recorder – Foreclosures, Mortgages, and Quit Claim Deeds – 2013 through August 1, 2014
• Cook County Recorder – Foreclosures – 2013 through August 1, 2014
• Cook County Recorder – Mortgages – 2013 through August 1, 2014
• Cook County Recorder – Quit Claim Deeds – 2013 through August 1, 2014
• Early Voting & Grace Period Registration and Voting – 2014 November 4 Gubernatorial Election
• Cook County Clerk – Polling Place Locations – 2014 November 4 Gubernatorial Election
• Budget – Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Executive Recommendation – Summary By Object Classification
• Medical Examiner Indigent Cremations‘

More to come!