Departmental Highlights

Snapshot: Appropriation & Staffing Changes from 2025 Budget

	2025 Budgeted	2026 Proposed	Net Change	Percent Change	Average Annual Rate of Change (2011-2025)	Inflation-adjusted Rate of Change (2011-2024)
Appropriations	$2,039,303,751	$1,836,518,885	-$202,784,866	-9.9%	15.7%	5.7%
Positions & FTEs	1576	1481	-95	-6.0%	4.3%	NA

• CDOT is a heavily grant-funded department, with local funds making up only 13% of its proposed 2026 appropriations.
• In addition to federal, state, local, and COVID-19 grant funds, this year’s CDOT budget also includes $67.1 million in appropriations from a new Disaster Recovery grant fund.
• Most of CDOT’s net -95 position/FTE reduction was achieved by eliminating one or two positions from titles with multiple positions budgeted. The largest net cuts came in the Asphalt Laborer title (-10 positions), followed by Laborer (-7), Foreman of Cement Finishers (-6), and Cement Finisher, Pool Motor Truck Driver, and Civil Engineer III titles (-5 each).
• CDOT’s construction of buildings and structures appropriation increased by $117.8 million (20.9%) in the 2026 budget proposal, the largest net year-over-year change among CDOT’s appropriations. 
• The department’s overtime appropriation increased by roughly $8 million, more than double the previous year’s appropriation. 
• Apart from the reserve balance appropriation, the largest year-over-year reductions were $110 million (-51.7%) from CDOT’s professional and technical services appropriation and the elimination of a $3.8 million “purposes as specified” appropriation from 2025. 

Historical Context

For most of the previous decade CDOT was the third-highest funded city department, following the Chicago Police Department and the Department of Aviation. A series of substantial budget increases beginning in 2021, largely driven by a billion-dollar increase in budgeted construction spending, roughly tripled the department’s appropriation over three years. 

Since 2022, and continuing in the proposed 2026 budget despite a -9.9% budget cut, CDOT is the second-largest department in terms of overall appropriations. The department’s budget has historically increased at an average 15.7% rate of change (5.7% adjusted for inflation), compared to a citywide average rate of 8.3% (inflation-adjusted 4.4%). 

Over the past three complete budget years for which local fund actuals/encumbrances data is available, CDOT spent on average 91.9% of its budget, compared to the citywide average 86.4% local fund spend.

CDOT’s budgeted workforce, down 95 positions (-6%) in the 2026 proposal, has historically increased at a rate of 4.3% annually. 

From February through September of 2025, the months for which the city released full-time position vacancy data, CDOT averaged an 11.6% vacancy rate, very near to the citywide average of 11.2%. 

104 of the department’s budgeted full-time positions were persistent vacancies, meaning that the same title/division/section/subsection combination was vacant for all eight months of available data.

Staffing

CDOT has a single position budgeted for two new titles in this year’s proposal: Director of Human Resources and Menu Program Manager. 

Most of CDOT’s net -95 position/FTE reduction was achieved by eliminating one or two positions from titles with multiple positions budgeted. 

The largest net position/FTE cuts came in the Asphalt Laborer title (-10 positions), followed by Laborer (-7), Foreman of Cement Finishers (-6), and Cement Finisher, Pool Motor Truck Driver, and Civil Engineer III titles (-5 each). 

The following titles from the previous year’s budget were eliminated entirely in this year’s CDOT budget proposal, with budgeted positions reduced to zero: 

• Finance Officer
• Coordinator of Special Projects
• Assistant to the Commissioner
• Administrative Services Officer I - Excluded
• Human Resources Business Partner
• Director of Grants Management
• Senior Landscape Plan Examiner
• Coordinator of Bridge Operations
• Director of Administration I - Excluded
• Chief Contract Expediter

Appropriations

A heavily grant-dependent department, CDOT is 13% locally-funded in this year’s budget proposal, up slightly from the previous year’s 11.5%. 

More than half of CDOT’s proposed budget comes from the Federal Grants fund, with another 21.8% from the State Grants fund. In addition to those and the Local Public and Private Grant fund and COVID-19 Grant fund, CDOT’s 2026 budget draws $67.1 million in appropriations from a new Disaster Recovery grant fund, which was not present in the 2025 budget. 

Fund	2025 Budgeted	2026 Proposed	Net Change from 2024	Percent Change from 2025	Percent of 2026 Funding
Federal Grant Fund	$1,105,643,520	$1,038,977,000	-$66,666,520	-6.0%	56.6%
State Grant Fund	$621,462,000	$399,618,000	-$221,844,000	-35.7%	21.8%
Motor Fuel Tax Fund	$104,279,405	$106,669,006	$2,389,601	2.3%	5.8%
Local Public and Private Grant Fund	$65,656,000	$83,331,000	$17,675,000	26.9%	4.5%
Vehicle Tax Fund	$79,417,481	$82,648,417	$3,230,936	4.1%	4.5%
Disaster Recovery Fund	$0	$67,104,000	$67,104,000	New Fund	3.7%
Corporate Fund	$49,886,190	$49,382,390	-$503,800	-1.0%	2.7%
COVID-19 Grant Fund	$12,603,000	$7,948,000	-$4,655,000	-36.9%	0.4%
Grants Management Fund	$0	$426,000	$426,000	New Fund	0.0%
Tax Increment Financing Administration Fund	$356,155	$415,072	$58,917	16.5%	0.0%

Largest Appropriations

Despite a substantial reduction from the previous year, CDOT’s largest appropriation account remains reserve balance, a new category added last year by OBM and described during the 2025 budget hearings as representing grant funds that will be rolled over into the next year, rather than expended in the current budget year. 

Construction of buildings and structures was once again the next-largest appropriation by a substantial margin, followed by salaries and wages on payroll and professional and technical services (the city’s outside contracting appropriation category). 

Local fund actuals are of limited use for comparing CDOT’s budget to its actual expenses since so much of the department is grant-funded; however, in the most recent year for which local fund actuals are available, CDOT expended most of its budget in all major appropriations categories without going over budget in any. 

(Because the appropriation categories used in the 2022-2024 actuals datasets from the Department of Finance do not correspond exactly to the appropriation accounts used in the budgets presented by the Office of Budget and Management, an exact line-by-line comparison of real spend to budget is not possible.)

Change from Previous Year

CDOT’s construction of buildings and structures appropriation increased by $117.8 million (20.9%) in the 2026 budget proposal, the largest net year-over-year change among CDOT’s appropriations. 

The department’s overtime appropriation increased by roughly $8 million, more than double the previous year’s appropriation. 

Apart from the reserve balance appropriation, the largest year-over-year reductions were $110 million (-51.7%) from CDOT’s professional and technical services appropriation and the elimination of a $3.8 million “purposes as specified” appropriation from 2025. 

This article first appeared on Better Government Association and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.