Politics
Chicago Spent $137M on Police Overtime in 6 Months, Nearly 70% Of Its Annual Overtime Budget: Watchdog
(Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
The city of Chicago spent $136.9 million on overtime for members of the Chicago Police Department during the first half of 2026 — nearly 70% of the entire budget the Chicago City Council set aside for police overtime as part of the city’s spending plan, according to records published by the city’s watchdog.
CPD spent approximately $700,000 more on overtime during the first six months of 2026 than it did during the same period in 2025, according to a database published by Inspector General David Glockner.
CPD’s budget for 2026 is $2.1 billion, including $200 million to pay members of the police department to work more than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week, records show.
In all, Chicago taxpayers spent $285.9 million on overtime for members of the Chicago Police Department during 2025. To finish 2026 on budget, CPD must reduce its spending on overtime by 30% as compared with what the department spent in 2025, based on the data published by the inspector general.
CPD spent $162.5 million more than its City Council-approved budget in 2025, records show.
CPD has overspent its budget five years in a row, according to Chicago’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports from 2021 to 2025.
Asked about overspending by CPD in 2025, Mayor Brandon Johnson said on July 7 that officials were “making tremendous progress, particularly around the police budget, and especially around overtime.”
Records published by CPD show the officials had planned to spend $89.57 million on overtime during the first six months of 2026 that was not expected to be reimbursed by sister agencies like the Chicago Transit Authority or taken as compensatory time by officers.
The department exceeded its monthly budgets for March, April and May and has not yet published data for June when it expected to spend no more than $22.37 million on overtime, according to department records.
A CPD spokesperson did not respond to inquiries from WTTW News about when that data would be published and why it had been delayed.
According to the inspector general’s website, CPD spent $29.7 million on overtime in June, more than in any other month this year.
The city is on pace to spend approximately $274 million on police overtime by the end of the year, according to data published by the inspector general, despite Johnson signing an executive order designed to prevent CPD from spending unlimited sums of taxpayer money on overtime after the Chicago City Council declined to approve his crackdown.
Opponents of the mayor removed a requirement that CPD brass publicly ask the City Council for more money if the department exhausts its $200 million budget for overtime from the spending plan that Johnson allowed to take effect over his objections.
Under the executive order, CPD officials must notify the mayor three months before the department exhausts its $200 million budget for overtime that it needs more funds.
That request must detail the “operations necessitating the need for additional overtime appropriation” and “the funding source within the department’s annual appropriation to be used to provide the additional overtime funding,” according to the order.
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, department officials have told the City Council.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
