Department of Environment – BGA Policy 2027 Budget Snapshot

The current Department of Environment was first established in the 2023 budget as the "Office of Climate and Environmental Equity," with preliminary appropriations and positions for the department's formation. (The city had a prior Department of Environment, created under Mayor Richard M. Daley in 1992, but it was disbanded in 2012 as part of Rahm Emanuel's first budget and city reorganization.)

The 2024 budget first established the new Department of Environment as a fully budgeted, standalone department, while the 2026 budget substantially expanded the departmental budget and headcount. The department in its current form is too new for historical or inflation-adjusted comparisons, although the version that existed prior to the Emanuel administration had a final year budget of roughly $55 million in 2011, or approximately $75 million in 2025 dollars - substantially more than the current department's proposed $53.1 million for 2027.

Estimated Fringe Costs

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 uses the average annual rate of increase for each of the inputs into the fringe formulae.

Based on the city's fringe formulae, the DoE fringe cost for nongrant employees in 2026, its only year operating at its current size, was 9.2%, compared to a citywide average of 32.0%.

Local Fund Actual Spend

The Department of Environment spent on 94% of its locally funded budget in 2025, the last full year for which budget actuals are available, compared to the citywide average 87.5% local fund spend.

Budgeted Positions & Vacancies

Last year was the Department of Environment's first year at its current size, leaping from 14 budgeted positions in 2025 to 79 in 2026.

Much of the year was spent filling those new positions, as seen in DoE's monthly vacancy data. At the start of the year, only 16 of the department's 79 budgeted positions were full; by September (the last full month for which vacancy data is currently available), 61 were full, for a vacancy rate of 22.8%

16 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):