Office of Inspector General – BGA Policy 2027 Budget Snapshot

The city’s internal watchdog agency, the Office of Inspector General’s responsibilities and authority have expanded multiple times over the past decades. The department has existed in its current form since a 2016 update to its establishing ordinance, with 2017 the first full budget year for the expanded department. 

• 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. Only one position has been vacant at OIG in every month from Jan-Sept; the proposed budget eliminates eight positions.
  
• OIG’s budgeted headcount has been reduced in every budget under the Johnson administration, 2024 through 2026 and now in the 2027 proposal.
  
• OIG’s proposed $14.5 million in 2027 departmental appropriations fall $6.6 million short of the $21.1 million mandatory minimum as calculated by the city’s budget office.  As in previous years, OBM closes the gap by counting an estimated “fringe” cost of departmental pensions and benefits towards the funding floor, a practice that diverges from the rest of the city’s budget process in several significant ways, as detailed in a previous BGA Policy Analysis. 

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.

The proposed 2027 budget cuts eight positions from OIG, eliminating the Information Analyst – IG, Information Coordinator, and Administrative Assistant III – Excluded titles entirely. A position was also cut from each of the Chief Assistant Inspector General, Forensic Data Analyst, Performance Analyst, and Public Relations Coordinator titles. 

Of the positions eliminated from OIG’s budget, only a Performance Analyst position had been persistently vacant from Jan-Sept of 2026. 

OIG is one of three city departments with a mandatory minimum budget set in its establishing ordinance. A 2025 BGA Policy analysis found multiple issues with the way the city calculates the minimums and determines that the relevant departments have met them. 

OIG’s proposed $14.5 million in 2027 departmental appropriations fall $6.6 million short of the $21.1 million mandatory minimum as calculated by the city’s budget office.  As in previous years, OBM closes the gap by counting an estimated “fringe” cost of departmental pensions and benefits towards the funding floor, a practice that diverges from the rest of the city’s budget process in several significant ways:

• In current city practice, annual budgets do not treat pension/benefit costs as part of departmental budgets for any purposes other than meeting mandatory funding minimums.
  
• There are no OIG-specific appropriations for pension and benefits, which are treated as part of citywide lump-sums under the Finance General section of the budget.
  
• The fringe cost used to reflect OIG’s share of citywide pension/benefits appropriations is an estimate based on a fringe multiplier for an employee at the citywide average salary covered by the Municipal Employee’s Annuity and Benefits Fund, not a specific appropriation or calculation based on OIG’s departmental budgeted positions. 

The city’s calculation also counts estimated indirect costs towards OIG’s budget floor, although in this year and the past several years fringe alone has been sufficient to exceed the threshold as calculated by OBM. Indirect costs are taken from annual Cost Allocation Plan analyses performed for the city by a third-party contractor. 

OIG is entirely locally funded, with the majority of appropriations coming from the city’s general-purpose corporate fund, and the remainder from the water, sewer, and airport funds. 

Largest Appropriations

As with most departments, personnel costs make up the bulk of OIG’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, OIG spent 93.9% of its locally-funded budget, with no overspend in any specific categories. 

Change from Previous Year

The salaries and wages appropriation is down in OIG’s 2027 budget proposal, reflecting the reduction in budgeted staff. IT software and hardware purchases saw the largest increases.