Chicago’s budget process is chaotic. It needs stronger analysis.

The City Council and the mayor could have avoided their bickering over the budget if aldermen had given the City Council Office of Financial Analysis, or COFA, the time and resources it was due to serve its intended purpose. COFA is the City Council’s independent budget evaluator, analogous to the Congressional Budget Office and the state’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. 

Instead of approving a governor or mayor’s budget carte blanche, these entities enable legislators to question departmental requests for more money and the validity of revenue and expenditure forecast. 

Here is a formal description of COFA on the city’s website: “COFA provides the City Council with fiscal analysis of legislation, forecasts, and budget recommendations.”

A report last year from Crain’s Chicago Business and the University of Chicago Center for Effective Government raised major concerns about the time needed to analyze the budget. Chicago’s mayor presents the budget to council members just two to three days before the budget hearings commence. The budget is approved one month later. Budget hearings are public meetings in which the council and the public can question the mayor, department heads and finance officials about taxation and spending on different services.

The report “The Making of Chicago’s Fiscal Mess” also covers the origins of COFA and compares it to similar entities in San Diego and New York City.

Chicago used Seattle’s City Council budget watchdog, the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst, as a model to create COFA in 2013. New York City’s counterpart is the Independent Budget Office. In New York, the City Council receives the budget weeks before hearings and has months before a final vote. San Diego gives council members close to a month to prepare for hearings and two months to adopt the city’s final budget. 

The budget is a government’s most important policy document. Without money, nothing can happen, including providing essential services such as public safety. If conceived in the light of day, the document should reflect the public’s preferences for services and the community’s values. Crucially, this legally binding document governs taxpayer spending.

It should be common sense that aldermen and COFA should have ample time to scrutinize the budget. This past year’s budget was more than 600 pages. The people’s representatives on the City Council should have more time to review this voluminous and important document.

Personnel needed to analyze the budget is another issue raised by the university’s Center for Effective Government. COFA has two employees compared with around 11 in San Diego and more than 30 in New York. Chicago’s small staff must provide detailed accounts on the annual budget, revenue and expenditure forecasts, the annual financial statement and fiscal impact notes, which help aldermen understand the total cost of a project or new program.

Sadly, as the report points out, in 2021, COFA could not fulfill its responsibility to produce an examination of the budget. In 2021 and 2023, it produced an 11-page and 32-page report. I reviewed both reports and I would characterize them as budgetary review light. They parrot back the overview section of the mayor’s budget, which makes COFA’s work to be redundant.

San Diego’s budget analysis is 200 pages. This is a lot to digest for a busy public servant. I am certain legislative aides condense this information for their bosses. The report overflows with data and metrics essential for council members to grasp tradeoffs. New York’s Independent Budget Office is required to produce three reports.