Who Owes The City, By Its Own Weekly Ledger

On 693 weeks since October 2011 — most weeks, though 85 in the span have no snapshot — the office Chicago’s data portal names as this file’s owner, Revenue, has counted something unusual: how many people on the payroll lines of city departments and sister agencies owe money to the City itself. Read whole, the file runs 26,611 rows, and the latest snapshot, September 5, 2026, says: 8,832 employees across 41 payroll lines owe $7,456,679.40, against a summed reported headcount of 114,012 across those lines — 7.7 percent of it. What the debts are for, the file never says. What it does say, snapshot after snapshot for close to fifteen years, is how many and how much — and this year holds both the biggest total ever recorded and a single week that jumped $3.7 million.

Employee Indebtedness to the City of Chicago (pasx-mnuv), 26,611 rows retrieved September 10, 2026, read whole; the description’s own framing: “Number of employees in each department or sister agency who owe funds to the City.” · no employee is named anywhere in the file and no per-person figure is derived on this page · housekeeping disclosed: three duplicate department-week pairs in 2012 (one filing $0.00 beside $400.00 — both summed as filed) and a handful of blank fields across six 2013 weeks, none touching any figure highlighted here · 85 of the span’s 778 weeks have no snapshot, as filed

What this ledger is — and what “owes” means here

The data owner is Revenue, and the file’s department-ID column points at the “ARMS system, which manages delinquent receivables” — the city’s system for money it is owed. Each row is one payroll line on one date: how many individuals the line employs, how many of them owe funds to the City, and the total those employees owe. The panel is wider than city government proper — the Chicago Board of Education, the Chicago Transit Authority, the Chicago Park District, City Colleges and other sister agencies file alongside city departments, each as its own line. The percentage column checks out against its own rows: on the hundreds of recent rows we verified, it is the owing count divided by the line’s headcount, to the tenth of a percent.

The ledger, year by year

The last weekly snapshot of each year, summed across all lines as filed; 2026’s row is the September 5 snapshot, the file’s latest at retrieval. Counts are employees owing; no snapshot names anyone.
Year (last snapshot)	Employees owing	Total owed
2011 (12-16)	4,327	$1,560,820.00
2012 (12-07)	5,228	$2,457,868.62
2013 (12-28)	4,027	$2,426,409.97
2014 (12-27)	5,528	$3,376,861.71
2015 (12-26)	3,472	$2,347,435.59
2016 (12-31)	4,526	$3,365,902.64
2017 (12-30)	4,949	$3,865,462.08
2018 (12-08)	6,278	$5,324,467.51
2019 (12-28)	5,716	$5,111,757.60
2020 (12-26)	5,811	$5,217,886.70
2021 (12-25)	6,419	$5,975,203.40
2022 (12-31)	7,095	$5,475,769.60
2023 (12-30)	8,628	$6,942,755.20
2024 (12-28)	9,139	$7,110,457.00
2025 (12-27)	7,945	$7,327,819.40
2026 (09-05)	8,832	$7,456,679.40

The arc bends upward, with dips along the way. Year-end totals go from $1.56 million in 2011 to $7.46 million on the latest 2026 snapshot — $7.46 million is 4.8 times the 2011 figure — but not in a straight line: 2015’s year-end fell back to $2.35 million before the climb resumed, and 2013, 2019 and 2022 each ended below the year before. The within-year extremes are wider still. The most ever owed on one snapshot is $10,776,640.40, on February 7, 2026; the most employees ever counted owing is 12,237, on February 8, 2025; the fewest, 2,642, in August 2014. The two all-time highs happen to sit a year apart in February, but the file’s yearly peaks scatter across every season — we checked — so this page reads nothing seasonal into them.

The week the ledger jumped $3.7 million

Between the January 31 and February 7 snapshots this year, the citywide total went from $7,039,484.70 to $10,776,640.40 — up $3,737,155.70 in one week — and the count of employees owing went from 7,397 to 11,433, up 4,036. The rise is spread across the panel, led by the Board of Education line (up $1,480,023 and 1,785 employees) and the CTA line (up $1,264,282 and 812), with police, parks, fire and aviation lines all moving the same direction. Then it recedes: by early March the total is back under $8.9 million, and by September 5 it stands at $7.46 million. The file offers no explanation for the jump or the fade, and this page offers none either — a weekly stock count records levels, not reasons.

The September 5 snapshot, line by line

The ten lines with the most employees owing, September 5, 2026, as filed; the share column is the file’s own, verified against its rows. The full snapshot holds 41 lines.
Payroll line	Headcount	Employees owing	Share of line	Total owed
CHICAGO BOARD OF EDUCATION	61,416	5,174	8.4%	$4,013,766.40
CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY	11,627	2,273	19.5%	$2,425,092.60
CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT	12,204	309	2.5%	$173,927.60
CHICAGO PARK DISTRICT	3,788	265	7.0%	$223,289.00
CITY COLLEGES OF CHICAGO	4,941	205	4.1%	$208,112.60
CHICAGO FIRE DEPARTMENT	4,782	182	3.8%	$91,532.30
WATER MANAGEMENT	2,046	133	6.5%	$76,754.60
CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF AVIATION	1,976	78	3.9%	$63,295.50
DEPARTMENT OF STREETS AND SANITATION	1,978	44	2.2%	$29,269.20
OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS	869	33	3.8%	$27,448.40

Every share needs its denominator, and the table’s two leaders show why. The Board of Education line has the most employees owing — 5,174 — and the most owed, $4,013,766.40; it is also far and away the panel’s biggest line, at 61,416 of the 114,012 summed headcount, so its share is 8.4 percent. The CTA line is a fifth its size and carries 19.5 percent — the highest share of any line with a four-digit headcount. The highest share outright belongs to the Board of Election Commissioners line: 11.1 percent — of a headcount of 99. At the other end, the Chicago Police Department line, among the panel’s biggest, files 2.5 percent. And 13 of the 41 lines — from the Board of Ethics to Housing to the City Clerk — file zero employees owing at all.

What the file confirms, and what it cannot tell you

Confirmed, snapshot by snapshot: how many individuals each line employed, how many owed funds to the City, and the sum owed — a stock, re-counted every week, with the percentage column’s arithmetic verified against its own rows. What no row holds: what any debt is for — parking tickets, water bills, and every other receivable ARMS manages are indistinguishable here; who owes — the file names no one, and this page follows it; whether debts were paid, waived, or written off between snapshots — a falling total is a smaller stock, not a receipt; and why any week moved. One more limit is the labels themselves: 141 department labels appear across fifteen years and only 41 are on the latest snapshot — renames and reorganizations are not mapped in the file, so every history here is the history of a label as filed.

Where the record lives

The file itself updates weekly, per its own description — “Frequency: Data is updated weekly.” — with Revenue as the stated data owner. Every figure on this page recomputes from the file as retrieved September 10, 2026; later snapshots may change the totals.

The bottom line

For close to fifteen years — 693 snapshots, with 85 weeks unfiled — Chicago has kept a count of the debts owed to it from across its department and sister-agency payroll lines, and the count has grown: from $2.55 million owed by 7,053 employees on the first snapshot in October 2011 to $7.46 million owed by 8,832 on September 5, 2026, with 2026 already holding the biggest single-week total ever filed. The ledger counts and sums; it does not itemize, name, or explain. Read that way — as a stock, by its labels, with its own caveats attached — it is one of the stranger and more candid files the city keeps about itself.

Two more questions the file can answer

Which lines file zero? Thirteen lines on the September 5 snapshot record zero employees owing — among them the Board of Ethics, Budget & Management, the City Clerk, the City Treasurer’s Office, Planning and Development, and Housing. Has the count ever been small? Yes — the file’s low-water mark for employees owing is 2,642, in August 2014, less than a quarter of the February 2025 peak of 12,237. Both are the same weekly count, thirteen years apart, as filed.

Source: the city’s Employee Indebtedness to the City of Chicago file (pasx-mnuv): 26,611 rows, 693 weekly snapshots from October 14, 2011 to September 5, 2026, retrieved September 10, 2026 and read whole. 85 of the span’s 778 weeks have no snapshot; 31 to 41 lines file per week.
Grain: one row per payroll line per snapshot: headcount, employees owing, share, total owed. Citywide figures sum all lines on a date as filed — including three duplicate 2012 pairs (disclosed above) and treating the few blank 2013 fields as adding nothing; no highlighted figure touches those dates. The percentage column was verified against headcounts on 400-plus recent rows.
Not derived: no dollars-per-person arithmetic of any kind; the file counts people and sums dollars, and this page stops where it stops. Sister agencies are named as themselves and never called city departments.
Not here: what the debts are for, who owes them, or any judgment about anyone — the file names no one and takes no position, and neither does this page.

Computed by KCM Desk from the city’s employee-indebtedness file, retrieved September 10, 2026. If you spot an error, corrections come first.