Departmental Highlights

Snapshot: Appropriation & Staffing Changes from 2024 Budget

	2024 Budgeted	2025 Proposed	Net Change	Percent Change
Appropriations	$1,484,552,843	$2,037,827,721	$553,274,878	37.3%
Positions & FTEs	1591	1576	-15	-0.9%

• CDOT is primarily grant funded, with substantial increases in federal and state grants accounting for most of this year’s budget increase.
• Most of the net -15 headcount reduction was achieved by eliminating a single budgeted position across a number of titles. Laborer headcount is down the most from the previous year, with four fewer asphalt laborer and three fewer concrete laborer positions budgeted (declines of -3.1% and 1.9% respectively). The department is also down four truck driver positions from the previous year.
• As with several other departments, CDOT’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.
• CDOT is one of a small number of departments for which personnel costs do not make up the bulk of appropriations. Setting aside the new reserve balance appropriation, construction and outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation are the department’s largest budgeted categories.
• CDOT’s outside contracting budget has grown dramatically, with a $153 million (256.1%) increase from the previous year’s appropriation.
• The construction of buildings and structure appropriation is down $523.8 million from the year previous, a -48.2% decline.  
  

Historical Context

For most of the previous decade CDOT was the third-most expensive city department, following the Chicago Police Department and the Department of Aviation. A series of large 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 2025 budget, CDOT is the second-largest department in terms of overall appropriations.

From 2011-2024, the department budget grew at an average rate of 10.2% per year, largely due to double-digit growth rates from 2021 onwards. 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.

CDOT’s budgeted workforce grew at a rate of roughly 4.8% annually from 2011-2023, making it among the fastest-growing departments, largely due to higher growth rates from 2021-2023. A slight headcount decrease in the proposed budget would reverse the trend, with CDOT’s budgeted positions declining a modest 0.9%

Staffing

Most of the net -15 headcount reduction was achieved by eliminating a single budgeted position across a number of titles. Laborer headcount is down the most from the previous year, with four fewer asphalt laborer and three fewer concrete laborer positions budgeted (declines of -3.1% and 1.9% respectively). The department is also down four truck driver positions from the previous year. 

As with other departments, administrative assistant positions underwent retitling, but with no net change in the total number of positions. 

Appropriations

CDOT is primarily grant funded, with substantial increases in federal and state grants accounting for most of this year’s budget increase. 

Largest Appropriations

As with several other departments, CDOT’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.

CDOT is one of a small number of departments for which personnel costs do not make up the bulk of appropriations. Setting aside the new reserve balance appropriation, construction and outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation are the department’s largest budgeted categories. 

Change from Previous Year

CDOT’s outside contracting budget has grown dramatically, with a $153 million (256.1%) increase from the previous year’s appropriation.

The construction of buildings and structure appropriation is down $523.8 million from the year previous, a -48.2% decline.