Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability – BGA Policy 2026 Budget Snapshot

The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability recommends candidates for Chicago Police Department and Police Board leadership, drafts and has power to approve CPD policies, and reviews the departmental budget and goals for CPD.

CCPSA's budget also supports the three-member District Councils elected within the city's 21 police districts.

Departmental Highlights

Snapshot: Appropriation & Staffing Changes from 2025 Budget

• CCPSA's proposed 2026 departmental appropriations fall $435,358 short of the roughly $4.5 million mandatory minimum as calculated by the city's budget office. As in previous years, OBM closes the gap by counting an estimated "fringe" cost of departmental pensions and benefits towards the funding floor, a practice that diverges from the rest of the city's budget process in several significant ways:
  • In current city practice, annual budgets do not treat pension/benefit costs as part of departmental budgets for any purposes other than meeting mandatory funding minimums.
  • There are no CCPSA-specific appropriations for pension and benefits. Pensions and benefits costs are treated as citywide lump-sums for each of the city's four annuity and benefit funds under the Finance General section of the budget.
  • The fringe cost used to reflect CCPSA's share of citywide pension/benefits appropriations is an estimate based on a fringe multiplier for an employee at the citywide average salary covered by the Municipal Employee's Annuity and Benefits Fund, not a specific appropriation or calculation based on the department's budgeted positions.
  • CCPSA's minimum budget is set at 0.22% of non-grant appropriations for the Chicago Police Department. While the budget office counts CCPSA's estimated fringe towards that budget floor, it does not include an estimate of CPD's fringe in the 0.22% calculation, resulting in an apples-to-oranges comparison of CCPSA appropriations plus estimated fringe to CPD appropriations without estimated fringe.
  • If CPD fringe were included in the budget floor calculation, even at an estimate based on the citywide average, CCPSA's budget plus fringe would fall $969,106 short of CPD budget plus fringe. (The actual gap would be larger still, since Policemen's Annuity and Benefit Fund employees receive much higher fringe rates than MEABF employees.)

• CCPSA's budget proposal adds a single Deputy Director position, increasing the department's total budgeted positions for that title from two to three. Budgeted positions were otherwise unchanged from the previous year.
• In 2024, the most recent complete budget year for which local fund actuals and encumbrances data is available, CCPSA spent 68.8% of its locally-funded budget, among the lowest rates that year. Much of that underspend came from the department's outside contracting budget, with only $78,000 out of a budgeted $597,000 spent.
• CCPSA's outside contracting budget through the professional and technical services appropriation saw the largest cut, down -$176,000 (68.9%) from the previous year. Salaries and wages saw the largest increase, up $340,000 (12.1%) from 2025.

Historical Context

The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability was created by the July 2021 Empowering Communities for Public Safety ordinance. As of passage of the 2022 budget, the commission was still in its interim form, although it received some initial funds for start-up operations in that year's budget.

The commission operated under interim appointed leadership for its first years, with 2024 and 2025 the first budget cycles for which the commission came into its role as a fully-operational department with leadership elected via the process laid out in the 2021 ordinance. Its budget and headcount have grown as the commission ramps up to full operations, with the rate of growth this year slowing and staying relatively level with the 2025 budget.

The 2026 proposal recommends a 1% increase in CCPSA's budget, compared to an overall citywide decrease of -2.6%. Because CCPSA's budget is based on a percentage of CPD's budget, it tends to track closely with the police budget, which is up 0.8% in the 2026 recommendations.

In the two complete budget years in which CCPSA was fully active and for which local fund actuals/encumbrances data is available, CCPSA spent on average 68.4% of its locally funded budget, compared to the citywide average 86.4% local fund spend, among the lowest rates of actual spend in the city.

CCPSA's budgeted headcount climbed during the department's first ramp-up years and have remained relatively stable since 2024, with this year's budget proposing one additional position.

From February through September of 2025, the months for which the city released full-time position vacancy data, CCPSA averaged a 21.4% vacancy rate, compared to the citywide average of 11.2%.

Two of the department's budgeted full-time positions were persistent vacancies, meaning that the same title/division/section/subsection combination was vacant for all eight months of available data.

Budget Floor

CCPSA is one of three city departments with a mandatory minimum budget set in its establishing ordinance. A BGA Policy analysis earlier this year found multiple issues with the way the city calculates the minimums and determines that the relevant departments have met them.

CCPSA's proposed $4 million in 2026 departmental appropriations fall $435,358 short of the roughly $4.5 million mandatory minimum as calculated by the city's budget office. As in previous years, OBM closes the gap by counting an estimated "fringe" cost of departmental pensions and benefits towards the funding floor, a practice that diverges from the rest of the city's budget process in several significant ways:

• In current city practice, annual budgets do not treat pension/benefit costs as part of departmental budgets for any purposes other than meeting mandatory funding minimums.
• There are no CCPSA-specific appropriations for pension and benefits, which are treated as citywide lump-sums for each of the city's four annuity and benefit funds under the Finance General section of the budget.
• The fringe cost used to reflect CCPSA's share of citywide pension/benefits appropriations is an estimate based on a fringe multiplier for an employee at the citywide average salary covered by the Municipal Employee's Annuity and Benefits Fund, not a specific appropriation or calculation based on the department's budgeted positions.
• CCPSA's minimum budget is set at 0.22% of non-grant appropriations for the Chicago Police Department. While the budget office counts CCPSA's estimated fringe towards that budget floor, it does not include an estimate of CPD's fringe in the 0.22% calculation, resulting in an apples-to-oranges comparison of CCPSA appropriations plus estimated fringe to CPD appropriations without estimated fringe.

If CPD fringe were included in the budget floor calculation, even at an estimate based on the citywide average, CCPSA's budget plus fringe would fall $969,106 short of CPD budget plus fringe. (The actual gap would be larger still, since Policemen's Annuity and Benefit Fund employees receive much higher fringe rates than MEABF employees.)

Budgeted Position Changes

CCPSA's budget proposal adds a single Deputy Director position, increasing the department's total budgeted positions for that title from two to three. Budgeted positions were otherwise unchanged from the previous year.

Appropriations

CCPSA is entirely locally funded, with all appropriations drawn from the Corporate Fund.

Largest Appropriations

As with most departments, personnel costs make up the bulk of CCPSA's appropriations, with salaries and wages on payroll by far the largest expense category. The commission also has a smaller standalone appropriation for commissioners' stipends, which are not full-time salaried positions.

In 2024, the most recent complete budget year for which local fund actuals and encumbrances data is available, CCPSA spent 68.8% of its locally-funded budget, among the lowest rates that year. Much of that underspend came from the department's outside contracting budget, with only $78,000 out of a budgeted $597,000 spent.

(Because the appropriation categories used in the 2022-2024 actuals datasets from the Department of Finance do not correspond exactly to the appropriation accounts used in the budgets presented by the Office of Budget and Management, an exact line-by-line comparison of real spend to budget is not possible.)

Change from Previous Year

CCPSA's outside contracting budget through the professional and technical services appropriation saw the largest cut, down -$176,000 (68.9%) from the previous year. Salaries and wages saw the largest increase, up $340,000 (12.1%) from 2025.

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