Chicago owed nearly $20 million in police overtime for special events this year; taxpayers may be on the hook
CITY HALL — The city spent $22.6 million on police overtime for special events this year but has only been reimbursed $2 million, leaving taxpayers to cover the remaining costs.
City law requires special event producers to pay for police services beyond 12 shifts. However, an investigation by Block Club Chicago and CBS Chicago revealed through records requests that the city has not been retroactively charging for those costs.
Chicago hosts hundreds of street festivals each year, with approximately 1,300 events held between 2021 and 2023. During that period, nearly 2,800 Chicago police officers logged a combined total of 27,000 overtime hours to patrol these events, according to a CBS News Data Team analysis of police overtime records and special event permits.
At a Chicago Police budget hearing on Friday, officials confirmed that a significant portion of the overtime associated with special events has gone unreimbursed, attributing the issue to a "decentralized system."
In 2024, the police department spent $22.6 million on special event overtime across various music, street, and neighborhood festivals. About $7.2 million of that is attributed to ticketed events like Lollapalooza, the Chicago Marathon, and NASCAR. However, the city has only been reimbursed for Lollapalooza and the Chase Corporate Challenge, totaling just under $2 million, police officials disclosed on Friday.
The 2024 figures are an increase from 2023, which saw $19.2 million spent in police overtime across all special events, police officials said. It's currently unknown how much of that was reimbursed to the department. Special events include large ticketed festivals, street festivals, athletic events and bar crawls. Chicago hosted 677 special events in 2023, according to records obtained by CBS Chicago.
The revelation aligns with months of unanswered public records requests directed at the Department of Finance, which has been unable to produce invoices for police overtime at street festivals.
While the department did provide invoice data for traffic control aides at events like Riot Fest, Lollapalooza, and several 5Ks, it referred CBS News to the city's Public Safety Administration for police overtime. However, the Public Safety Administration has not responded to records requests for police overtime details and did not return requests for comment.
"What may make more sense is we can provide all of our historical data about what our costs are, and we can provide that to DCASE, we can provide that to the Department of Finance. We can give a unified city service quote at the front end," said Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director at the Chicago Police Department.
During a budget hearing for the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events last week, officials revealed that their department is not involved in the invoicing process for reimbursing police overtime, raising concerns among aldermen that permits are being issued to event producers with outstanding balances.
On Friday, police officials said that despite the lack of reimbursement, they do not have the authority to block special event permits unless there are safety concerns. This lack of enforcement power leads to ongoing accountability issues with invoicing, they noted.
"We conduct numerous after-action meetings with OEMC and other city agencies. The problem is that, while we identify these reimbursement issues during those meetings, they are not addressed in subsequent permits issued the following year," said Chief Duane DeVries, head of the Bureau of Counterterrorism with the Chicago Police Department.
After each permitted special event, the Chicago Police Department generates an "event evaluation form" that tracks the number of incidents and officers assigned to the event.
On Friday several aldermen requested event evaluation forms for various Chicago's special events.
In July, the CBS News Data Team and Block Club Chicago requested event evaluation data for various events from 2019 to 2024, including PrideFest, Market Days, Wicker Park Fest, and Lollapalooza. The department said the evaluations were kept on paper. A request for those documents was made in August. As of last week, the department is still working on that request.
All special event producers are required to present security plans to Chicago Police for feedback before the city's events department issues a permit. The amount of private security is determined by various factors, including the event's history, location, current events and crime trends. Event organizers suggest a security plan and the police department approves, denies and makes suggestions.
Because of this, some special event producers have argued that they should not be required to pay for police overtime.
"It's like someone coming and painting your house and then saying, 'I want you to pay for it.' … Well, I didn't want you to paint my house," Hank Zemola, CEO of Special Events Management, previously said. "I ordered all this (security) so we wouldn't have to do that."
Special Events Management puts on numerous special events including street races and neighborhood street festivals. The company organizes some of the city's most popular street festivals like Pridefest, Ribfest and others.
By city law, street festivals cannot charge an entry fee but can propose suggested donations for entry. With suggested donations in decline, inflation making festivals more expensive to produce and consumers spending less, Zemola estimates that at least 50% of the company's events this year lost money.
Still, with the City Council looking for cost-saving measures aldermen are eager to close the loophole that is hemorrhaging money from this city.
"I hope that with the information ... your department provides us, we can, from the council side, work on maybe a better process that gives you guys ... a seat at the table ... so that we can better manage and join our resources," said Ald. Maria Hadden (49th).
This story was produced under a collaboration with Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit newsroom focused on Chicago's neighborhoods, and CBS News Chicago. Melody Mercado contributed to this report.
