Office of Emergency Management and Communications – BGA Policy 2027 Budget Snapshot

Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication has undergone a number of oversight and responsibility changes over the years, causing significant changes in both budget and headcount. OEMC in its current form has existed since the 2021 budget, in which the new Office of Public Safety Administration was established and CPS crossing guards were removed from OEMC’s budget. 

• Setting aside title changes, promotions, and similar adjustments of positions within general job categories, OEMC’s proposed 2027 budget eliminates one Special Assistant position and adds one Manger of 311 Operations, keeping net headcount unchanged.
  
• OEMC’s budget for outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation more than doubled in the 2027 proposal, up $5.7 million (108.8%) from the previous year. 

A 2016 shift of crossing guards from the Chicago Public Schools budget to the city budget resulted in a near-doubling of OEMC’s budgeted headcount in 2016, a move that was reversed with a corresponding staffing drop in 2021. 

Appropriations have declined as various OEMC expenses became obsolete or were shifted to other budgets, including phone billing and hardware categories and wages and benefits for crossing guards, and since 2021 as the Office of Public Safety Administration has taken over and centralized some of OEMC’s functions. 

Looking only at the 2021-2026, budget years following the establishment of OPSA and the removal of crossing guards from OEMC’s budget, departmental appropriations declined at an average rate of -5.4% annually, or -8.5% 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 5.5% 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 OEMC fringe cost for nongrant employees averaged 38.1% 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, OEMC spent on average 89% of its locally funded budget, compared to the citywide average 86.6% local fund spend.

Budgeted Positions & Vacancies

Staffing levels at OEMC have remained relatively stable since the 2021 dropoff, averaging a -1.7% annual rate of change from 2011-2026, compared to a citywide average annual change of 0.6% for the same years. The current proposal makes no net change in the total number of budgeted positions/FTEs for OEMC. 

From January through September of 2026, the months for which full-time position vacancy data is currently available, OEMC averaged a 20.4% vacancy rate, compared to the citywide average of 11.2%. 

117 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), more than half of which are in the various police communications officer titles: 

Setting aside title changes, promotions, and similar adjustments of positions within general job categories, OEMC’s proposed 2027 budget eliminates one Special Assistant position and adds one Manger of 311 Operations, keeping net headcount unchanged. 

OEMC is 90.7% locally-funded in this year’s budget proposal, close to unchanged from the previous year’s 91.6%. 

Roughly 71% of OEMC’s appropriations are made from the Emergency Communications Fund, which is funded by a telecommunications surcharge specifically dedicated to emergency services, and are not easily fungible with other departmental budgets. An additional 10.7% of OEMC’s budget comes from the city’s general-purpose corporate fund. 

OEMC also draws from the newly-established Protecting CARE fund, which is funded by the application of the city’s amusement tax to large social media sites and supports the city’s mental health and non-police emergency first response pilot programs. 

Largest Appropriations

As with most departments, personnel costs make up the bulk of OEMC’s appropriations, with salaries and wages on payroll by far the largest expense category. 

In 2025, the most recent complete budget year for which local fund actuals and encumbrances data is available, OEMC spent 90.2% of its locally-funded budget, with no overspend in any appropriation lines. 

Change from Previous Year

OEMC’s budget for outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation more than doubled in the 2027 proposal, up $5.7 million (108.8%) from the previous year. 

The amount of funds held in reserve balance is down significantly, -$5.6 million (-81.2%) from 2026.