Chicago’s budget grew 80% in a decade while the city’s population grew 1%. Property taxes and sales taxes feel high because the budget grew more than twice as fast as prices — and more than twice as fast as the property-tax base. Here is where the money actually goes, and how each piece grew.
Every figure below is from the city’s own budget documents or the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, linked at the bottom. Where a number can’t be put on a same-series chart, we say so instead of fudging it.
FY2026 adopted budget
The FY2026 budget the council actually passed — $18.67 billion on the Annual Appropriations Ordinance basis (the Budget Overview presents the same budget as $16.8 billion; different fund presentation, same spending — see the note at the bottom). Airports, water, and sewer are largely paid for by user fees, not property taxes, but they are in the total because the ordinance counts them.
| Where it goes | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Other Finance General (residual*) | $3,316.14M | 17.8% |
| Pensions — all four funds | $2,899.70M | 15.5% |
| Police (CPD) | $2,109.81M | 11.3% |
| Debt service | $1,975.10M | 10.6% |
| Transportation (CDOT) | $1,837.52M | 9.8% |
| Aviation (O'Hare + Midway) | $1,666.09M | 8.9% |
| Community Services | $1,116.88M | 6.0% |
| Fire (CFD) | $901.68M | 4.8% |
| Finance & Administration | $867.57M | 4.6% |
| Water Management | $772.72M | 4.1% |
| All other departments | $1,205.35M | 6.5% |
| Line item | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Police (CPD) | $2,109.81M | 11.3% |
| Fire (CFD) | $901.68M | 4.8% |
| Other public safety (OPSA, OEMC, COPA, CCPSA, Police Board) | $255.87M | 1.4% |
| Pension contributions — all four funds | $2,899.70M | 15.5% |
| Debt service | $1,975.10M | 10.6% |
| Other Finance General (residual*) | $3,316.14M | 17.8% |
| Streets & Sanitation | $349.89M | 1.9% |
| Transportation (CDOT) | $1,837.52M | 9.8% |
| Aviation (O'Hare + Midway) | $1,666.09M | 8.9% |
| Water Management | $772.72M | 4.1% |
| Community Services (DFSS, Public Health, Library, MOPD, Human Relations) | $1,116.88M | 6.0% |
| Finance & Administration (incl. Fleet & Facilities) | $867.57M | 4.6% |
| City Development (Housing, Planning, DCASE) | $381.74M | 2.0% |
| Regulatory | $152.22M | 0.8% |
| Legislative & Elections | $65.63M | 0.4% |
| Total, Annual Appropriations Ordinance basis | $18.67B | 100% |
*Other Finance General is a computed residual: Finance General’s $8,190.94M total minus pensions and debt service. It holds employee health benefits, IT, settlements and judgments, and other cross-departmental items — the city does not publish it as a single line.
FY2016 → FY2026
Only same-series endpoints are charted: a line appears here only if its FY2016 and FY2026 figures come from comparable bases. That discipline is why the chart has five bars, not eight — the missing ones are explained below, not hidden.
Per resident, the story is the same: the budget went from $3,446 per Chicagoan in FY2016 to $6,150 in FY2026 — up 78.5% nominal, and 33.1% after inflation, for a population that grew 1.0%. If the FY2016 budget had merely kept up with inflation, it would be $12.50 billion today. It is $16.8 billion — about $4.3 billion a year above inflation.
Pensions. The FY2016 adopted pension contribution wasn’t retrievable; the FY2016 proposal was $978 million against FY2026’s adopted $2,900 million — roughly triple, but proposal-versus-adoption isn’t a same-series comparison, so it stays out of the chart rather than in it with an asterisk the size of the bar. The direction is not in doubt: the pension ramp is the single biggest driver of the budget’s growth.
Fire and personnel. No adopted FY2016 fire-department total or citywide personnel aggregate was retrievable on a comparable basis, so neither is charted. But there is no clean “city employees” slice in the first place: salaries live inside every department. The police budget is 91% personnel (Civic Federation), and the pension and benefit costs for those same employees sit separately in Finance General — a setup the Civic Federation, the Better Government Association, and the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability say “disguis[es] the true cost-for-service” of each department. So when the pie shows Police at 11.3%, remember the pension slice beside it is paying for those officers’ retirements too.
Debt service, by contrast, barely moved — $1.8 billion proposed in FY2016 to $1,975 million adopted in FY2026, about +10% on an indicative basis — while pensions roughly tripled. The growth problem is not borrowing for today’s services. It is the retirement bill for yesterday’s.
Sources
Council Office of Financial Analysis, FY2026 Budget Review: Budget Process & Comparative Analysis — executive summary (adopted budget $16.8B; proposal $16.6B) and Tables 6–15 (every pie slice; FY2026 police $2,109.81M).
Inspector General, CPD Budget Explainer 2023, Figure 2 — FY2016 police $1,452.50M (local + grant funds); confirms pension contributions are appropriated separately from department budgets.
City of Chicago, FY2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR), Statistical Tables 13 & 16 — equalized assessed value, tax years 2016 ($74.02B) → 2023 ($99.65B); 2024 EAV was not available from the Cook County Clerk at publication. The 2016 figure is independently corroborated by the Civic Consulting Alliance Cook County assessment study ($74B).
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights CPI-U (CUUR0000SA0) — +34.1%, 2016 annual average → 2025 annual average.
U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates — Chicago, 2,704,958 (July 1, 2016) → 2,731,585 (2025), +1.0%.
Civic Federation, “How Flexible is the Chicago Police Department Budget?” — 91% of CPD’s Corporate Fund budget is personnel; benefits budgeted separately in Finance General.
Civic Federation, BGA & CTBA statement on the Budget Transparency Ordinance — pension and benefit costs lumped in Finance General “disguising the true cost-for-service.”
FY2027’s $17.6B “Fair Share Budget” is a proposal still before the Council, which must act by December 31, 2026. This page charts FY2026, the budget that is actually in force.
February 23, 2027. Share the budget, charted.