Office of Inspector General – BGA Policy 2027 Budget Snapshot

A major expansion to OIG's establishing ordinance in 2016 gave the office a broader oversight mandate and established a mandatory minimum budget set at 0.14% of annual appropriations, not including pension payments in excess of 2014 levels and intergovernmental agreements entered into by the OIG.

Because the department's funding level is partially tied to the size of the budget overall, OIG's annual appropriations tend to track relatively closely to the total citywide appropriations. Since 2017, the first full budget year for which OIG's modern form and budget floor were established, OIG's budget grew at an average annual rate of 6.5%, or 3.3% adjusted for inflation, compared to a citywide average rate of 6.8% (inflation-adjusted 3.7%).

The current proposal would increase the department's appropriations by 1.2% from the previous year.

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 OIG fringe cost for nongrant employees averaged 45.3% from 2018-2026, compared to a citywide average of 26.8%.

Local Fund Actual Spend

Over the past four complete budget years for which local fund actuals/encumbrances data is available, OIG spent on average 92.7% of its locally funded budget, compared to the citywide average 86.6% local fund spend.

Budgeted Positions & Vacancies

OIG's budgeted headcount increased from its 2016 expansion to a high of 125 positions in 2023, the final budget of Lori Lightfoot's administration. Since then, each budget under the Johnson administration has cut budgeted headcount at OIG. The current proposal would decrease budgeted headcount by eight positions from the previous year, a -6.8% reduction.

From January through September of 2026, the months for which full-time position vacancy data is currently available, OIG averaged a 7.2% vacancy rate, among the lowest of all city departments, compared to the citywide average of 11.2%.

Only one of the department's budgeted full-time positions was a persistent vacancy (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):

OIG is the only department in this year's budget proposal to see more positions/FTEs eliminated than the department's total number of persistent vacancies.