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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
HONORING THE YEARS OF SERVICE AND DEDICATION OF AMMAR M. RIZKI
WHEREAS, Ammar M. Rizki proudly served as Chief Financial Officer of Cook County starting in June 2017 overseeing the financial operations of the County that include an $8 billion annual budget, $3 billion debt portfolio and $1.5 billion in federal pandemic relief funds; and
WHEREAS, Ammar previously served as deputy chief financial officer for almost four years. In that role, he worked to ensure that County's debt and pension obligations grew no more than 2%, ensuring manageable growth without unnecessary burden on County operations; and
WHEREAS, in his time with the County, Ammar helped spearhead dramatic improvements to the county's finances and pension funding. Under his leadership, Cook County has paid nearly $2 billion above the state's statutory payment formula, decreased outstanding debt by over $700 million in the last ten years and received the County's first bond rating upgrade in over a decade; and
WHEREAS, Ammar recently provided financial and operational input on the establishment of the County's Equity and Inclusion Fund, which is a part of Cook County's equity-based investments totaling over $100 million. This equity fund aims to create safe, healthy, and thriving communities in Cook County by reimagining and transforming systems around justice, public safety, health, housing, economic opportunity, community development, and social services to benefit Black and Brown communities and proactively invest resources to achieve equitable outcomes; and
WHEREAS, Ammar also helped develop a first-of-its-kind equity model used to award over $51 million of coronavirus relief to local governments. The award-winning program provided relief to local municipalities through an equitable lens, with factors that included, but that were not limited to, immediate needs of the municipality to respond to the pandemic, municipal population, municipal median income and munic...
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