September 18, 2025
The following is testimony delivered by Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson to the Cook County Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee at a September 17, 2025 on the matter of a Resolution Calling for Evaluation and Reform of Cook County Mosquito Abatement Districts, 25-3114. The original testimony has been edited slightly for publication.
The Civic Federation strongly supports the resolution calling for the Cook County Department of Public Health to conduct an assessment of mosquito abatement activities across suburban Cook County and make recommendations regarding improvements and governance to ensure consistency of services across the County.
Mosquito abatement and vector control are critically important and necessary public health functions. However, the current fragmented, inequitable method of delivering these services is neither efficient nor accountable to the public.
Earlier this year, the Civic Federation released a report reviewing the transparency, finances, and governance of the four Cook County mosquito abatement districts. The report was generated at the helpful prompt of a member of the County Board and noted that:
- There is a service gap between the South Cook County Mosquito District and the other districts documented by the Cook County Office of Inspector General, which raises concerns about the equitable application of environmental policies in Cook County for all citizens.
- The four Cook County Mosquito Abatement Districts vary in the amount of transparent information about government documents, records, finances, and performance data that is publicly available.
- The County Office of Inspector General (OIIG) and the Chicago Sun-Times have documented unethical hiring practices, institutional mismanagement, waste, and conflicts of interest by Board of Trustee members at the South Cook County Mosquito Abatement District, the largest of the four districts, which remain largely unaddressed, and without meaningful turnover in leadership.
The Civic Federation report also recommended that:
- The four Cook County Mosquito Abatement Districts be dissolved and their functions and taxing authority incorporated into the Cook County government. We further recommended that:
- Mosquito abatement services should be delivered by the Cook County Health and Hospital System (which already performs some vector control functions for the County).
- The current individual property tax levies, totaling $9.1 million in FY2022, as provided in state law, could be transferred to the Cook County government to fund vector control services, or reduced or abolished depending on assessed continuing need as well as efficiencies achieved.
- A state statute or county ordinance be approved requiring special districts, such as mosquito districts, to publicly disclose financial and operational data. Wherever this reporting is already required, there should be a mechanism to ensure enforcement.
- A statute be approved empowering the Cook County Office of the Inspector General to investigate these entities, not just their governing officials, and mandate that reports on remedial actions be made publicly available.
There are nearly 9,000 units of local government in the State of Illinois, far more than any state in the country. The impulse in a time of fiscal constraint verging on crisis is often a reflexive call to elimination. This opportunity for merger would position Cook County as a leader in the effort to identify the right form of government and government administration that serves both fiscal imperatives and integrated, equitable delivery of important government services.
We look forward to continued engagement with the County Board of Commissioners on this issue.