Chair Ervin, Vice-Chair Lee, and members of the City Council:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Before we turn to questions, I’d like to briefly provide some context for OIG’s budget proposal.
I’ll begin with a quick overview of our work. OIG serves three main functions:
- We conduct investigations of potential misconduct by employees and third parties who interact with the City, including vendors, licensees, and lobbyists.
- We conduct audits and program reviews across City government to identify waste and inefficiencies and provide recommendations for departments to strengthen their controls.
- We also are an important part of the police oversight ecosystem. Our Public Safety section reviews investigations completed by COPA and the Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs, provides oversight over the Police Board and CCPSA, and conducts audits and program reviews relating to the Police Department.
In addition to our investigations, audit, and public safety teams, we have a group of data analysts who have broad access to City data and support our audit and investigative work. The data analysts have created dashboards that provide the public with user-friendly access to important categories of City data.
OIG’s independence is critical to our effectiveness. We address issues objectively, without political bias or influence, and with a view to constructive problem-solving. Our independence is built into our authorizing ordinance and reflected in many ways. These include, for example, the process for selecting the Inspector General that involves participation by both City Council and the Mayor’s Office, and a budget floor of .14% of total City appropriations.
While I’m happy to discuss our work and priorities, I’ll keep the remainder of my remarks focused on our budget.
OIG received about $14.3M in 2026 with a headcount of 118 and is requesting about $14.6M for 2027 and a headcount of 111.
When the 2027 budget process began, OBM asked OIG, like other departments, to submit a budget flat to OBM’s starting point for 2027, and a supplemental workbook with reductions based on budget size – in our case cutting about another $319,000.
We took this budgeting exercise seriously. If OIG is going to credibly push for efficiencies elsewhere in city government, we have to apply the same scrutiny to our own operations as we would to those of other departments.
We developed our 2027 budget against the backdrop of significant cost pressures, particularly for non-personnel costs. In 2026, non-personnel costs made up roughly 14% of our budget, or about $2M. Most of these non-personnel costs – just over two-thirds – are IT-related. These costs are principally for hardware and software, and they will rise significantly in 2027, increasing by about $519,000 even after we worked with DTI to achieve meaningful savings on several items.
Developing our 2027 budget led us to do what every organization should do on a regular basis, which was to critically evaluate how our expenses line up with our responsibilities and priorities, and consider whether we could find ways to lower costs without meaningfully hurting our effectiveness.
We were able to make some modest reductions to our non-personnel expenses, but to meet our budget target in the face of rising technology costs, we needed to reduce personnel costs. We identified five vacancies that we could manage without, and another position that we expect to become vacant by the end of the year.
We also looked carefully at the alignment of our existing personnel resources with OIG’s current needs and priorities and identified one currently occupied position, in our communications group, that we do not believe is needed going forward. (The materials submitted to you reflect a potential reduction of one other position, but after discussions with the Mayor’s Office, that position has been restored and OIG will work with OBM to reflect that in the technical amendment process.)
The decisions about headcount reduction were difficult, but they produced approximately $517,000 in savings, enabling us to approach our OBM target in a way that I am confident will not undercut OIG’s ability to fulfill its mission.
The final point I’d like to briefly address concerns our IT expenses. OIG historically has maintained much of its own technology infrastructure separately from the City. As cloud technology has improved and cost structures have evolved, the rationale for maintaining this separate IT infrastructure has grown weaker, and OIG is working in coordination with DTI to transition most of our technology operations to City infrastructure and the cloud over the next several years, without compromising our independence, confidentiality, and security needs. There are some short-term costs associated with this transition, some of which are included in our 2027 budget, but in the long run this transition will save the City money and ensure a more robust, resilient, and flexible environment for OIG’s technology needs.
I am happy to take your questions.
About the Office of Inspector General (OIG)
The mission of the independent and nonpartisan City of Chicago Office of Inspector General is to promote economy, effectiveness, efficiency, and integrity by identifying corruption, waste, and mismanagement in City government. OIG is a watchdog for the taxpayers of the City and has jurisdiction to conduct inquiries into most aspects of City government.
If you see misconduct, mismanagement, or waste, we need to hear from you.
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