The city publishes its 2026 position book twice: once as the mayor’s proposal, which we read whole in August (27,924 annual positions, file retrieved August 24, 2026), and once as the adopted book — the 2026 Budget Ordinance positions file, same shape, same unit rules. Read against the proposal line by line, the entire annual-position difference between the two files fits in one small table: 27,975 annual positions adopted, 51 more than proposed, with the annual changes spread across eight departments (a ninth changed only in hours) — and 46 of the 51 went to the Chicago Public Library, which also gained 52,497 budgeted hours. The police position count the mayor proposed, 13,727, was adopted untouched. The salary ladder did not move: the top budgeted salary is still the Commissioner of Aviation’s $350,000, above the police superintendent’s $284,016 and the mayor’s $221,052. In dollars, the adopted position book runs $3,919,431,759 — $8,622,575 above the proposal, a 0.22 percent change. Which hands moved which line, and why, is not in either file, and this page does not guess.
Budget – 2026 Budget Ordinance – Positions and Salaries (v2t2-vajc), 8,243 rows, retrieved August 28, 2026, read against our aggregate of the proposal file (wd4x-2xf8, retrieved August 24, 2026) · Annual rows count positions, Hourly rows hours, Monthly rows months — the three are never summed · departments matched by exact nameThree units, two files
| Unit type | Proposed | Adopted | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual (positions) | 27,924 | 27,975 | +51 |
| Hourly (hours) | 3,241,714 | 3,303,474 | +61,760 |
| Monthly (months) | 794 | 796 | +2 |
| Budgeted dollars, all units (allowances included) | $3,910,809,184 | $3,919,431,759 | +$8,622,575 |
The adopted book carries 8,243 rows to the proposal’s 8,235 and 1,260 distinct titles to the proposal’s 1,267 — seven title lines fewer. Its allowance rows behave the same way: 960 Annual rows carry zero positions and $104,224,358 in dollars only, so the position counts stay clean and the dollar totals include allowances.
The whole difference, enumerated
Match the 39 departments by exact name across the two files and only nine changed in any unit. This table is not a sample — it is the entire annual-position difference between the proposal file and the adopted-ordinance file, and its changes sum to exactly +51:
| Department | Proposed annual | Adopted annual | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago Public Library | 851 | 897 | +46 |
| Chicago Animal Care and Control | 82 | 90 | +8 |
| Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection | 207 | 202 | -5 |
| Chicago Department of Transportation | 364 | 368 | +4 |
| Chicago Department of Public Health | 757 | 759 | +2 |
| Chicago Department of Aviation | 1,217 | 1,215 | -2 |
| Office of City Clerk | 93 | 92 | -1 |
| Office of Public Safety Administration | 278 | 277 | -1 |
| Department of Streets and Sanitation | 347 | 347 | +0 |
The hourly side closes just as exactly. The adopted book carries 61,760 more budgeted hours than the proposal, and five departments account for every one of them: the library (+52,497), public health (+8,316), transportation (+938), streets and sanitation (+10), and the Office of Public Safety Administration (−1). Our reading, labeled as ours and staying inside the files: the difference between proposal and ordinance is, overwhelmingly, a library difference — 46 of 51 positions and 52,497 of 61,760 hours. What that buys, and whose pen moved it, is for the Council’s own record, not these files.
What did not change
The largest numbers in the book passed through unchanged. Police: 13,727 budgeted annual positions in both files, with Police Officer the single largest title at 8,719 positions in both. Fire: unchanged in every unit — it is not in the table above. The salary ladder is identical at the top: Commissioner of Aviation $350,000, Superintendent of Police $284,016, Fire Commissioner $249,780, and one row titled Mayor at $221,052. For the proposal-side story — how the budgeted book compares with the people actually on the payroll — our proposal piece reads wd4x-2xf8 against the August employee file; the adopted book leaves that comparison’s police row unchanged, 13,727 budgeted in both files.
- Sources: the city’s Budget – 2026 Budget Ordinance – Positions and Salaries file (v2t2-vajc), 8,243 rows, all aggregates computed on the portal, retrieved August 28, 2026; and our committed aggregate of the proposal file (wd4x-2xf8), retrieved August 24, 2026, from our budgeted-versus-payroll piece, linked below.
- Units: budgeted_unit is a text unit type: Annual rows count positions, Hourly rows count hours, Monthly rows count months. No figure on this page sums across unit types, and each comparison names its unit.
- The diff: departments are matched by exact name; all 39 names match across the two files. A department appears in the change table if any of its three unit totals differ. The annual changes sum to +51 and the hourly changes to +61,760, matching the file-level differences exactly — the tables are complete, not sampled.
- What this page does not say: why the Council changed what it changed, what any department does with its positions, or whether any position is filled — none of that is in these files. The adopted book as published in the file also does not reflect any amendments made after publication.
Computed by KCM Desk from the city’s adopted and proposed 2026 position files, retrieved August 28, 2026. If you spot an error, corrections come first.
Related Keep Chicagoland Moving coverage
- How Chicago Works, by the Numbers
- Chicago’s 2026 Budget Carries 27,924 Annual Positions. The Employee File Runs 1,546 Below It at the Police Department Alone — and the Top Budgeted Salary Belongs to the Aviation Commissioner.
- Police and Fire Hold 16,960 of Chicago’s 31,768 City Positions — More Than Half the Roster
- One Department Name Survives All Sixteen of Chicago’s Budget Ordinances: Finance General, Now 44 Percent of the Appropriations