City Treasurer’s Office – BGA Policy 2027 Budget Snapshot

The city treasurer is one of three elected city-wide officials, along with the mayor and the clerk. The treasurer manages the city’s bank accounts and pension and investment funds.

• The City Treasurer’s Office has seen one of the highest rates of budget growth in recent years among non-ARPA funded departments. The current proposal continues the trend, increasing the department’s appropriations by 32.8% from the previous year, one of the largest proportional increases in the proposal.
  
• The 2027 proposal makes no changes to budgeted positions at CTO. Headcount, titles, and positions remain the same as in 2026.

• Outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation has more than doubled in CTO’s 2027 proposal, up $1.9 million (168%) from the previous year. 

The City Treasurer’s Office has seen one of the highest rates of budget growth in recent years among non-ARPA funded departments, and relatively high sustained rates of growth in budgeted headcount as well. 

From 2011-2026, CTO’s budget grew at an average rate of 8.6% annually, or 6.3% when adjusted for inflation through 2025, compared to a citywide average rate of 5.5% (inflation-adjusted 3.2%). The current proposal would increase the department’s appropriations by 32.8% from the previous year, one of the largest proportional increases in the proposal.

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 CTO fringe cost for nongrant employees averaged 34.0% 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, CTO spent on average 83.6% of its locally funded budget, compared to the citywide average 86.6% local fund spend.

Budgeted Positions & Vacancies

Staffing levels at CTO have followed roughly the same path as appropriations, with a rise in 2016 followed by a relative plateau until steeper increases beginning in 2022 and continuing on up to a 2025 high of 43 budgeted positions.

Overall, the department’s budgeted headcount grew at an average annual rate of 4.5% from 2011-2026, compared to a citywide average annual change of -0.1%. The current proposal would maintain the previous year’s budgeted headcount. 

From January through September of 2026, the months for which full-time position vacancy data is currently available, CTO averaged a 12.2% vacancy rate, compared to the citywide average of 11.2%. 

Three 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): 

The 2027 proposal makes no changes to budgeted positions at CTO. Headcount, titles, and positions remain the same as in 2026.

CTO is entirely locally-funded in this year’s budget proposal, as in the previous year. Approximately half of the department’s appropriations come from the Corporate Fund, with the rest made up of the airport, water and sewer, and TIF administration funds. 

Largest Appropriations

As with most departments, personnel costs make up the bulk of CTO’s appropriations, with salaries and wages on payroll by far the largest expense category, followed by outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation. 

In 2025, the most recent complete budget year for which local fund actuals and encumbrances data is available, CTO spent 81.4% of its locally-funded budget, with no overspend in any categories.

Change from Previous Year

Outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation has more than doubled in CTO’s 2027 proposal, up $1.9 million (168%) from the previous year. 

All other adjustments were relatively minor, with a $257,640 increase (6.1%) in salaries and wages the next-largest.