New OIG dashboard tracks Chicago police overtime costs

CHICAGO (WLS) -- More than $3 million. That's how much police overtime cost taxpayers last month alone.

You can see how much the city is spending on those extra hours as the Office of Inspector General has created the "Sworn CPD Member Overtime Summary Dashboard."

It provides information such as the rank and title of the officer, the reason for the overtime and the police district.

The inspector general says the police department's overtime spending is larger than the entire budgets of many other city departments.

"As the City begins a historically challenging budget process for 2026, we hope that this tool will be of use to Chicagoans, to City officials, and to CPD itself," said Deborah Witzburg, Inspector General for the City of Chicago. "CPD is the City department which, by a gaping margin, occupies the largest percentage of the City's budget. In recent years, CPD's overtime spending alone has dwarfed the entire budgets of many other City departments. In 2024, for example, over 11,000 sworn CPD members worked some amount of overtime at a cost to taxpayers of more than $270 million."

"As the City begins a historically challenging budget process for 2026, we hope that this tool will be of use to Chicagoans, to City officials, and to CPD itself," said Deborah Witzburg, Inspector General for the City of Chicago. "CPD is the City department which, by a gaping margin, occupies the largest percentage of the City's budget. In recent years, CPD's overtime spending alone has dwarfed the entire budgets of many other City departments. In 2024, for example, over 11,000 sworn CPD members worked some amount of overtime at a cost to taxpayers of more than $270 million."

The OIG's office said the data comes from multiple databases.

"CPD was extremely helpful to us as we built this tool, and I sincerely appreciate their partnership," Witzburg said.