Departmental Highlights

Snapshot: Appropriation & Staffing Changes from 2024 Budget

	2024 Budgeted	2025 Proposed	Net Change	Percent Change
Appropriations	$350,228,010	$352,858,177	$2,630,167	0.75%
Positions & FTEs	2294	2256	-38	-1.66%

• Taking title changes into account, general sanitation laborers are down roughly -23 FTEs. The proposed budget also cuts two assistant superintendent positions, five driver positions (across various titles) and an auto pound supervisor position. 
• Several titles were eliminated entirely and not replaced via retitling, including clerk and data entry positions and the Customer Account Representative, Community Outreach Coordinator, and Weighmaster.
• As with several other departments, DSS’s budget includes a “reserve balance” appropriation from a number of grant funds. This appropriation, which appears in several department’s budgets and has been retroactively added to 2024 appropriations data as well, was not used in the previous year’s budget at the time of its passage. BGA Policy  has reached out to the Office of Budget and Management for clarification of this appropriation’s purpose and has not yet received a reply.
• Apart from the new reserve balance appropriation, the department’s largest budgeted appropriations increases are a $1.8 million (0.9%) increase in salaries and wages and a $1.3 million increase in waste disposal services (2.3%), the department’s two largest appropriations overall. 
• Outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation saw the largest budget cut, down -$6.3 million (-11.7%) from the previous year.

Historical Context

The Department of Streets and Sanitation budget stayed relatively flat during both of Rahm Emanuel’s terms, following a roughly 270-position staffing reduction in his first budget. Appropriations began increasing sharply during Lori Lightfoot’s administration, accompanied by smaller but steady increases in budgeted positions. 

From 2011-2024, the department budget grew at an average rate of 3.5% per year. Departmental budgets overall increased an average of 6.1% per year over the same time period, while the total city budget including Finance General appropriations grew at an average rate of 8.5% annually.

The department’s budgeted workforce declined at a rate of roughly -0.8% annually from 2011-2024. Overall budgeted positions for the city remained relatively flat across the same time period, with minor year-to-year fluctuations averaging out to an overall growth rate of 0.04%.

Staffing

Overall budgeted headcount is down -38 positions from the previous year, a -1.7% decline. 

Taking title changes into account, general sanitation laborers are down roughly -23 FTEs. The proposed budget also cuts two assistant superintendent positions, five driver positions (across various titles) and an auto pound supervisor position. 

Several titles were eliminated entirely and not replaced via retitling, including clerk and data entry positions and the Customer Account Representative, Community Outreach Coordinator, and Weighmaster.

Appropriations

The Department of Streets and Sanitation is primarily funded out of the corporate fund, with substantial funding from the garbage collection, vehicle tax, and motor fuel tax funds making up most of the rest of its appropriations. 

Largest Appropriations

Salaries and wages on payroll make up DSS’s largest single-category appropriation, followed by the provision of waste disposal services. On its own and not including the associated personnel cost, waste disposal services are budgeted to cost $59.8 million in 2025, roughly 81.2% of the projected appropriations from the garbage collection fund.

Change from Previous Year

As with several other departments, DSS’s budget includes a “reserve balance” appropriation from a number of grant funds. This appropriation, which appears in several department’s budgets and has been retroactively added to 2024 appropriations data as well, was not used in the previous year’s budget at the time of its passage. BGA Policy  has reached out to the Office of Budget and Management for clarification of this appropriation’s purpose and has not yet received a reply.

Apart from the new reserve balance appropriation, the department’s largest budgeted appropriations increases are a $1.8 million (0.9%) increase in salaries and wages and a $1.3 million increase in waste disposal services (2.3%), the department’s two largest appropriations overall. 

Outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation saw the largest budget cut, down -$6.3 million (-11.7%) from the previous year.