Politics
Chicago Spent $119.7M on Police Overtime in 6 Months, 20% More Than Its Annual Overtime Budget: Watchdog
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling addresses the news media on Tuesday, Jan. 28. 2025. (WTTW News)
The city of Chicago spent $119.7 million on overtime for members of the Chicago Police Department during the first six months of 2025 — nearly 20% more than the Chicago City Council set aside for police overtime as part of the city’s annual budget, according to records published by the city’s watchdog.
CPD spent approximately 7% less on overtime during the first six months of 2025 than it did during the same period in 2024, according to a WTTW News analysis that compared 2024 data, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from city officials, and a database published by Inspector General Deborah Witzburg.
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling defended CPD’s spending on overtime during the department’s mid-year budget hearing on Wednesday, where alderpeople peppered him with questions about his efforts to rein in police overtime, a perpetual source of heartburn for members of the City Council.
“So we’re very careful about it, and I’m being a lot more careful about it because not only are we worried about the overtime, but we’re also worried about the health and wellness of the officers,” Snelling said. “We’ve reduced that overtime greatly.”
CPD spent an additional $46.4 million on overtime in July and August, which are typically two of the most violent and busy months of the year, according to the inspector general database.
In all, the database said, taxpayers spent more than $166 million on CPD overtime in just eight months, ensuring that the city will exceed its annual overtime budget for the seventh straight year.
CPD has used overtime to respond to hundreds of protests and special events during the past year, Snelling said.
The city is on pace to spend approximately $240 million on police overtime by the end of the year, according to data published by the inspector general, even as officials imposed limits on overtime to help fill a $146 million gap by the end of the year and a projected deficit of $1.15 billion in 2026, according to the inspector general’s database.
In 2024, CPD spent a total of $273.8 million on overtime, 6.5% less than in 2023, according to a WTTW News analysis.
The overtime database launched by Witzburg in July only includes data since September 2024, preventing a direct comparison between the first six months of 2024 and the same period this year.
CPD’s overtime costs have soared because officers’ salaries and benefits have gone up significantly while the number of CPD members has decreased by approximately 1,200 employees since 2019, Chicago Police Department Deputy Director Ryan Fitzsimons told members of the City Council’s Budget and Government Operations Committee.
Approximately 9% of the department’s 13,783 positions are vacant, Fitzsimons said. There were 11,606 sworn members of the police department in June, 83 fewer than in June 2024.
CPD’s annual overtime budget of $100 million has remained unchanged since 2019, despite a significant increase in the cost of living during the past six years.
Fitzsimons told alderpeople that CPD had spent $128 million on overtime between January and August, down from $156 million from the same period a year ago, in response to questions from alderpeople.
Those figures did not include “compensatory time or costs reimbursed by other entities,” a CPD spokesperson told WTTW News in response to a question about the apparent discrepancy between the data Fitzsimons provided during the hearing and the inspector general’s database.
Witzburg declined to comment to WTTW News.
Even as officers continued working fewer hours during the first six months in 2025 than they did in 2024, homicides dropped 30% and the number of shootings dropped 42.5% during the same period, city data shows.
Witzburg has repeatedly urged city leaders to be more transparent about what police overtime will cost taxpayers during the annual budget process.
The city’s Office of Inspector General has been warning for more than eight years that the money spent to pay officers overtime was “wasted” and fueled burnout, making misconduct and abuse more likely, first in an audit released in 2017 and then in a follow-up audit released in February 2020.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
