Office of the Mayor – BGA Policy 2027 Budget Snapshot

Mayoral office budgets have increased with each successive administration, rising from an inflation-adjusted average of $12 million across Rahm Emanuel's eight budgets (2012-2019) to an inflation-adjusted average of $14 million in Lori Lightfoot's 2020-2023 budgets. Brandon Johnson's first budget increased mayoral appropriations substantially further, with a departmental budget of $21 million.

Since Johnson's first budget, appropriations for the mayor's office have declined, but still remain above previous administration's levels, even after adjusting for inflation. The proposed budget includes $18.3 million in mayor's office appropriations, which if passed would bring the average across Johnson's four budget years to $18.8 million.

Looking across the three most recent administrations, from 2011-2026, the mayor's office budget grew at an average rate of 10.9% annually, or 10.3% adjusted for inflation, compared to a citywide average rate of 5.5% (inflation-adjusted 3.5%). The current proposal would increase the department's appropriations by 11.2% from the previous year.

City budgets do not break out "fringe" pension and benefit costs for non-grant positions by department, instead grouping them together as citywide expenses under the Finance General section of the budget. To better reflect the real cost of service for departmental operations, BGA Policy has included an estimate of pension and benefit costs for the years 2018-2026, using Department of Finance fringe memos from each relevant year. An estimated fringe cost for the 2027 proposal has been generated based on the average annual rate of increase in each of the inputs into the fringe formula.

Based on the city's fringe formulae, the mayor's office fringe cost for nongrant employees averaged 37.4% from 2018-2026, compared to a citywide average of 26.8%.

Over the past four complete budget years for which local fund actuals/encumbrances data is available, the mayor's office spent on average 79.7%% of its locally funded budget, compared to the citywide average 86.6% local fund spend.

Like departmental appropriations, budgeted mayoral staff positions have increased during each successive administration, rising from an average of 84 budgeted positions in Emanuel's budgets to 109 in Lightfoot's and 117 in Johnson's (including the 2027 proposal).

Overall, the department's budgeted headcount grew at an average annual rate of 2.8% from 2011-2026, compared to a citywide average annual change of -0.1%. The current proposal would increase the budgeted headcount by 3.6% from the previous year.

From January through September of 2026, the months for which full-time position vacancy data is currently available, the mayor's office averaged a 7.1% vacancy rate, compared to the citywide average of 11.2%.

None of the department's budgeted full-time positions were persistent vacancies (defined as the number of positions within the same combination of title, subsection, section, division, department, and fund codes that remained vacant in all nine months of available data):