The City of Chicago has released its 2023 Budget Forecast. If you are interested in learning more about the City's Budgetary performance and priorities, you can also read its Comprehensive Financial Annual Reports, which are legally required audit documents; you can also create a free account to review all the City's investment documents, including its 2022 Chicago Investors Conference presentations (free account needed).

As of October 3, the following 2023 Budget Documents are available:

• The Budget Overview is a shorter document, which summarizes the Budget and provides a narrative about the Budget. There are a number of graphics in this document, which visualize how the City is proposing to balance the 2023 Budget.

• The Budget Recommendations is a longer technical document, which includes a line-by-line recommendation for the budget for each Department and Fund.

This section of the website will be used to publish analyses and memos to inform 1st Ward residents of the budget advocacy that Alderman La Spata is undertaking at City Hall.

Budget Blog One: Underspending in 2020 and 2021 On an annual basis, the City is required to produce an audit, and one aspect of the audit compares what is budgeted to the actual spending. Between 2020 and 2021, the City underspent its budgeted personnel and contractual services line items by a total of $425,790,277.