When Did Chicago Spend Its ARPA Money? The City’s Transaction File, Read Whole

When did Chicago spend its federal American Rescue Plan Act money? By the dates in the city’s own ARPA transaction file, mostly in December: 77.9 percent of the $1,859,400,552.15 the file records as expended carries a December date. Two rows account for most of that — $782.2 million dated December 25, 2021, and $385.0 million dated December 17, 2022, both under a program the city names Essential City Services — and together they hold 62.8 percent of the dollars in the file. The other 50,959 rows hold the rest.

ARPA Road to Recovery Expenditure Report (7tg5-i782), 50,961 rows across 69 cost-center codes, expense dates December 25, 2021 through June 30, 2026, refreshed July 31, 2026, retrieved September 15, 2026 and read whole · program names from the city’s Program Details file, joined on cost center · an expense date is the file’s “date where an expense was incurred and documented” · amounts are net of 3,619 negative rows, as filed · no program, department or spending decision is judged

Two rows, 62.8 percent of the money

The six largest of the file’s 50,961 rows, as filed. Program names and departments come from the city’s Program Details file, joined on the cost-center code. All six carry Saturday dates in December.
Expense date	Cost center	Program (Program Details file)	Department	Amount
Saturday, Dec. 25, 2021	0054774	Essential City Services	Office of Budget & Management	$782,200,000.00
Saturday, Dec. 17, 2022	0054774	Essential City Services	Office of Budget & Management	$385,000,000.00
Saturday, Dec. 30, 2023	0594890	Essential City Services	Office of Budget & Management	$48,432,265.00
Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025	0594890	Essential City Services	Office of Budget & Management	$44,470,596.70
Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025	0594890	Essential City Services	Office of Budget & Management	$17,256,361.50
Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024	0594890	Essential City Services	Office of Budget & Management	$7,500,000.00

The file’s largest row is $782,200,000.00, dated Saturday, December 25, 2021 — the earliest date in the file — under cost center 0054774, which the Program Details file names Essential City Services and assigns to the Office of Budget & Management and the policy pillar Effective Governance. The second-largest is $385,000,000.00, dated Saturday, December 17, 2022, under the same code. Those two rows hold $1,167,200,000, or 62.8 percent of the file’s net total; the code’s other 15 rows, all dated December 31, 2025, add $5.0 million. What did $782.2 million buy? The file cannot say. Each row carries a code, a date and an amount, and nothing else.

Essential City Services, under four codes

The name Essential City Services sits on four cost-center codes that have rows in this file — three under the Office of Budget & Management and one under the Department of Family and Support Services — and together they account for $1.41 billion, 75.8 percent of the net total. Another Office of Budget & Management code, 0594890, files 15 rows and $129.9 million, every one dated on a December Saturday: $48.4 million on December 30, 2023; $7.5 million on December 28, 2024; and 13 rows totaling exactly $74,000,000.00 on December 27, 2025. The Family and Support Services code adds $108.2 million across 876 rows, and the fourth code’s two rows net to $0.00. Program identity in these files is the cost-center line, so a name shared by several lines is shown here with its department.

Net expended by the year of the file’s expense date, as filed; the December share is our arithmetic. The file’s latest date is June 30, 2026.
Year of expense date	Rows	Net expended	Dated in December	December share	Negative rows
2021	2	$782,205,935	$782,205,935	100.0%	0
2022	7,458	$423,478,381	$392,646,229	92.7%	324
2023	13,066	$268,325,529	$150,172,353	56.0%	965
2024	18,122	$195,143,131	$31,156,310	16.0%	1,446
2025	10,688	$175,764,252	$92,405,325	52.6%	839
2026 (through June 30)	1,625	$14,483,323	—	—	45

Does the December pattern come only from the two big rows? No. Set aside all 17 rows of the code that holds them, and the other 68 codes still date 40.2 percent of their $687.2 million to December — nearly five times the share a single month would carry if dollars were spread evenly across the year, our yardstick. The file does not say why. Its definition of an expense date is “The date where an expense was incurred and documented for a given program.” One reading, ours: dates that gather at the end of a year fit entries recorded as a year closes better than a rush of spending on those days — but no field in the file could confirm either.

The other 50,959 rows: small amounts, many lines, four and a half years

The ten largest program lines outside Essential City Services, by net expended through June 30, 2026. A latest expense date is the last date in this file, not a program’s end.
Program (Program Details file)	Department	Rows	Net expended	Latest expense date
Youth Opportunity Programs	Family and Support Services	6,539	$64,376,441	May 20, 2026
Chicago Empowerment Fund	Family and Support Services	283	$31,960,741	Feb. 4, 2025
Rapid Rehousing Program	Family and Support Services	206	$31,314,931	March 3, 2026
Mental Health Initiative	Public Health	3,375	$19,029,895	June 24, 2026
Community Violence Intervention	Public Health	1,572	$17,881,029	Jan. 23, 2026
Family Connects Program	Public Health	1,797	$14,442,493	June 30, 2026
Tourism and Hospitality Recovery	Cultural Affairs and Special Events	827	$14,296,292	May 26, 2026
Youth Intervention Programs	Family and Support Services	1,215	$13,878,970	Jan. 20, 2026
My CHI. My Future.	Family and Support Services	5,130	$13,826,025	Feb. 19, 2026
Community Safety Coordination Center (CSCC)	Public Health	1,596	$13,122,860	Jan. 15, 2026

What does the rest of the file look like? Mostly small transactions. Of the 46,738 rows with a positive amount, 80.5 percent are under $10,000, and the median is about $1,909. The largest program line outside Essential City Services is Youth Opportunity Programs at the Department of Family and Support Services, $64.4 million across 6,539 rows, followed by the Chicago Empowerment Fund at $32.0 million and the Rapid Rehousing Program at $31.3 million.

Is the money still going out?

In smaller amounts, by the file’s dates. Rows dated after December 31, 2024 carry $190.2 million, 10.2 percent of the net total, and 2026 through June 30 carries $14.5 million on 1,625 rows. After January 2026’s $9.6 million, monthly totals fell to $1.6 million in February, $129,742.72 in March and $110,968.73 in April, then $2.0 million in May and $1.0 million in June. Those dates can be read against federal deadlines that are not this page’s judgment: the U.S. Treasury’s rule for State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds set December 31, 2024 for obligation and December 31, 2026 for expenditure, and gives certain surface-transportation and Title I project categories an earlier expenditure date, September 30, 2026; neither city file says which lines, if any, fall in those categories. The city’s summary file shows all 67 of its program lines obligated in full. Neither file can say how much of any remaining balance is spent before those dates, and this page makes no prediction.

Does the transaction file match the city’s summary? To the cent

Yes. Summed by cost center, the 50,961 rows reproduce the expended amount on every one of the 67 lines in the city’s grants summary report — the file this site read for what remained unspent — to the cent, for the same $1,859,400,552.15 total. Two codes appear in the transaction file but not in the summary, and both net to $0.00: one named Essential City Services, with 2 rows, and one named COVID-19 Emergency Response, with 10. Eight codes in the Program Details file appear in neither.

Negative amounts and identical rows, as filed

Not every amount is positive. In all, 3,619 rows carry negative amounts totaling −$26.0 million, and the negative total grew in size each full year, from −$2.8 million in 2022 to −$13.6 million in 2025; the largest single negative row is −$931,000.00, dated November 25, 2024, under the Diverse Learners Recovery Fund. Another 604 rows record $0.00. And 7,496 rows share a cost center, date and amount with at least one other row — among them 31 identical $0.00 rows under the Street Ambassadors Program on January 26, 2024, and 30 rows of $2,760.00 under the Community Safety Coordination Center on December 31, 2022. The file labels none of these, and the totals that match the summary to the cent include every one.

What the file confirms, and what it cannot tell you

Confirmed, as filed: a cost-center code, an expense date and an amount on every row, and — through the Program Details file — a program name, department and policy pillar for every code. What no row holds: what an expense bought; who received it; why an amount is negative, zero or repeated; why dates gather in December; and how much of any balance is spent by Treasury’s dates. No program, department or spending decision is judged here.

Where the record lives

The expenditure report, the program details file and the grants summary report sit on the city portal, and the expenditure report’s own description sends readers to the city’s ARPA page. Every figure here recomputes from the files as refreshed July 31, 2026 and retrieved September 15, 2026; a later refresh may add or revise rows.

The bottom line

Asked when Chicago spent its ARPA money, the city’s transaction file answers with dates: 77.9 percent of $1.86 billion in December, 62.8 percent in two rows under Essential City Services, and 50,959 other rows, mostly under $10,000, running through June 30, 2026. Summed by code, it matches the city’s summary to the cent. What any row bought is not in it.

Two more questions the file can answer

Which department’s codes carry the most after the Office of Budget & Management? The Department of Family and Support Services, $340.7 million across 21 codes, then the Chicago Department of Public Health, $99.4 million across 14. And which policy pillar holds the most after Effective Governance’s $1.44 billion? Youth & Economy, $172.8 million across 14 codes.

Source: the city’s ARPA Road to Recovery Expenditure Report (7tg5-i782): 50,961 rows, 69 cost-center codes, expense dates December 25, 2021 through June 30, 2026, refreshed July 31, 2026, retrieved September 15, 2026 and read whole.
Names: the Program Details file (m9g9-cj96, 77 rows), joined on cost center; all 69 codes matched.
Reconciliation: the Grants Summary Report (9yp3-9pdz, 67 lines): each line’s amount_expended compared with the transaction rows summed by cost center; all 67 matched to the cent. Obligated equals allocated on all 67.
Our arithmetic: shares of the net total; the December share by year; “the other 68 codes” excludes all 17 rows of cost center 0054774; the even-spread yardstick is one month in twelve, 8.3 percent; the median of positive rows.
Not here: no recipient names (the file carries none); no reading of what any row bought; no judgment of any program or department; no prediction about Treasury’s deadlines.

Computed by KCM Desk from the city’s ARPA expenditure, program details and grants summary files, retrieved September 15, 2026. Human-guided and edited — about this desk. If you spot an error, corrections come first.