CITY HALL — The city spent $22.6 million on it police overtime for special events this year but only $2 million has been refunded, leaving taxpayers to cover the remaining costs.
City law requires special event producers to pay for police services after twelve shifts. However, an investigation by Block Club Chicago and CBS Chicago found that the city did not retroactively charge these fees.
Chicago organizes hundreds of street festivals every yearwith about 1,300 events between 2021 and 2023. During that period, nearly 2,800 Chicago police officers logged a total of 27,000 overtime hours patrolling these events, according to a CBS News Data Team analysis of police overtime records and special event permits.
During a Chicago Police Department budget hearing on Friday, officials confirmed that a significant portion of overtime associated with special events was not reimbursed, attributing the issue to a “decentralized system.”
In 2024, the police department spent $22.6 million on overtime for special events at various music, street and community festivals. About $7.2 million of that is attributed to events such as Lollapaloozathe Chicago MarathonAnd NASCAR. However, the city has only been reimbursed for Lollapalooza and the Chase Corporate Challenge, totaling just under $2 million, police officials announced Friday.
The 2024 numbers are an increase from 2023, when $19.2 million was spent on police overtime during all special events, police officials said. It is currently unknown how much of this has been repaid to the department. Special events include major ticketed festivals, street festivals, athletic events and pub crawls. Chicago hosted 677 special events in 2023, according to data obtained by CBS Chicago.
The revelation follows months of unanswered public records requests to the Treasury Department, which has failed to produce invoices for police overtime at street festivals.
Although the department provided billing information for traffic control workers at events like Riot Fest, Lollapalooza and several 5Ks, CBS News referred the city’s Public Safety Administration for police overtime. However, the Public Safety Administration did not respond to records requests for details on police overtime and did not return requests for comment.
“What might make more sense is that we can provide all of our historical data on what our costs are, and we can provide that to DCASE, we can provide that to the Treasury Department. We can provide a uniform quote for city services up front. end,” said Ryan Fitzsimons, deputy director of the Chicago Police Department.
At a budget hearing for the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events last week, officials revealed that their department is not involved in the billing process for reimbursing police overtime, raising concerns among councilors 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 permits for special events unless there are safety concerns. This lack of enforcement power leads to ongoing liability issues related to billing, they noted.
“We hold numerous debriefing meetings with OEMC and other municipal agencies. The problem is that while we identify these reimbursement issues at those meetings, they are not addressed in the subsequent permits issued the following year,” said Chief Duane DeVries, head of the Bureau of Counterterrorism with the Chicago Police Department.
After each authorized 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 special events in Chicago.
In July, the CBS News Data Team and Block Club Chicago requested event evaluation data for several events from 2019 to 2024, including PrideFest, Market Days, Wicker Park Fest and Lollapalooza. The department said the evaluations were kept on paper. These documents were requested in August. As of last week, the department is still working on that request.
All special event producers are required to submit safety plans to the Chicago Police Department for feedback before the city’s events department issues a permit. The level of private security is determined by several factors, including the event’s history, location, current events and crime trends. Event organizers propose a security plan and police approve, deny and make suggestions.
For this reason, some special event producers have argued that they should not be required to pay for police overtime.
“It’s like someone comes to paint your house and then says, ‘I want you to pay for it.’ … Well, I didn’t want you to paint my house,” Special Events Management CEO Hank Zemola previously said “I ordered all this (security) so we didn’t have to do that.”
Special Events Management organizes numerous special events, including street races and street festivals in the area. The company organizes some of the city’s most popular street festivals, such as Pridefest, Ribfest and others.
Under city law, street festivals are not allowed to charge an entrance fee, but they can suggest donations for admission. With suggested donations declining, inflation making festival production more expensive and consumers spending less, Zemola estimates that at least 50% of the company’s events have lost money this year.
But now that the city council is looking for cost-cutting measures, councilors are eager to close the loophole that’s draining money from this city.
“I hope that with the information… that your department is giving us, we can work from the council side on maybe a better process that gives you… a seat at the table… so we can manage it better and join us to our resources,” said Ald. Maria Hadden (49th).
This story was produced in partnership with Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit newsroom focused on Chicago neighborhoods, and CBS News Chicago. Melody Mercado contributed to this report.
