Most Chicago street festivals aren’t paying police overtime, leaving taxpayers on the hook

CHICAGO — The city of Chicago has been covering the cost of thousands of hours of police overtime at street festivals, despite event organizers being required to pay for it under city law, records show. 

Chicago hosts hundreds of street festivals annually, with about 1,300 held between 2021 and 2023. For those festivals, nearly 2,800 Chicago police officers worked a combined total of 27,000 hours of overtime to patrol the events, according to a CBS News Data Team analysis of police overtime data and special events permits.

The overtime that has gone unpaid likely costs city taxpayers millions of dollars, based on previous police spending.

Last week, alderpeople grilled officials from the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, demanding to know how many police resources were poured into neighborhood street festivals while raising concerns about officer burnout amid so many competing demands.

The hearing took place as city officials looked for revenues that would help them avoid raising property taxes, and after a busy summer that pulled officers out of neighborhoods and into events such as the Democratic National Convention, NASCAR and Lollapalooza. The police department is working with a yearslong decline in staffing and now has more than about 1,000 fewer officers than it did before the pandemic. 

“It’s my understanding there are a number of events in the city where, for whatever reason, we don’t ask the event organizer to reimburse us for things like police resources, police and fire, paramedic, traffic control,” Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) said during the hearing last week. “Some events spend lots of money on those sorts of things, like Lollapalooza, for example. Yet other events don’t get charged these things.” 

City law requires the police commander of special events to “calculate the estimated hourly cost for the personnel required for the event, and … charge the applicant for such services” in excess of 12 shifts. 

But after months of public records requests, the Department of Finance was not able to produce invoices for city employees staffing street festivals. The department provided invoice data for traffic control aides at events including Riot Fest, Lollapalooza and several 5Ks, and referred CBS News to the city’s Public Safety Administration for police overtime. 

That department, which has a separate budget from the police department, handles contracts such as ShotSpotter for the police and fire departments and the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. The Public Safety Administration hasn’t responded to records requests for police overtime for special events and officials there did not return requests for comment.

Local aldermen are also starting to ask questions. Alds. Raymond Lopez (15th), Matt O’Shea (19th), Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th), Chris Taliaferro (29th), Scott Waguespack (32nd), Andre Vasquez (40th), Bennett Lawson (44th), Leni Manaa Hoppenworth (48th), and Maria Hadden (49th) all pressed DCASE on the issue at last week’s hearing, with several asking for evidence of the required reimbursements. 

Some also requested a list of Chicago’s special events that require additional police resources, while others asked for cost analyses for various special events. 

“I think there is a lack of equity in how we’re charging special events for reimbursements to the city of Chicago, and as a legislator facing a billion-dollar budget deficit and being asked to sock it to my constituents with more property taxes,” Reilly said. “Using police officers and paramedics to support large, private and oftentimes profit-making special events, that’s not a luxury we have. Bureaucrats may think this stuff is free, but our constituents, the taxpayers, pay for it.”

In an interview with Block Club Chicago, Reilly clarified that concerns about unpaid reimbursements came from members within the police department and “other departments that intersect with special events.”

“It’s unacceptable. And the worst part is, we may never get a real accounting of what exactly we’re owed,” Reilly said. “I don’t think anybody could afford police costs or overtime.”

Street festivals can be a boost to neighborhood economies, raising awareness and funds for local groups and nonprofits. They often require months of planning and coordination with various city departments before a permit can be issued. 

Despite rising production costs for street festivals, the city provides significant concessions, including steeply discounted street closures and covering the cost of taking privatized parking meters offline.

Per city ordinance, organizers typically pay a $100 permit fee if filed on time. Street closures cost event producers $100 per day per block for a street festival permit downtown and $50 for other parts of the city. Filming permits for TV shows to shut down a street are more expensive, running around $500, while permits for developers moving heavy equipment and cranes can cost thousands of dollars.

Alderpeople also pressed DCASE officials about revenue loss from parking meters for special events being passed on to taxpayers. The Chicago Tribune reported that the city paid $600,000 to the city’s private parking meter company to cover the revenue lost by taking parking meters offline during NASCAR the last two years. 

With a nearly $1 billion budget gap next year, the hidden costs of hosting large-scale events have become more pronounced.

Despite these concessions, Hank Zemola, CEO of Special Events Management, believes that requiring him and other event producers to pay for police overtime would effectively kill most festivals.

Zemola has been involved in producing Chicago special events since the 1970s. His company is listed on at least 23 permit applications this year, including for some of the city’s most popular street festivals: Pride Fest, Northalsted Market Days, Ribfest, Taste of Greektown, Chinatown Summer Fair and more.

“I don’t think anybody could afford police costs or overtime. I think pretty much 90% of events would be done,” Zemola said.

All special event producers are required to present security plans to the police for feedback before the city’s events department issues a permit. The amount of private security is determined by various factors, including the event’s history, location, current events and crime trends. Event organizers suggest a security plan and the police department approves, denies and makes suggestions.

Zemola only uses off-duty officers for the street festivals he produces. He says it’s an expensive endeavor, costing tens of thousands of dollars depending on the size of the event. 

Because event security plans are assessed by the police department, Zemola argues his company should not be responsible for overtime costs for police officers sent to his events.

“It’s like someone coming and painting your house and then saying, ‘I want you to pay for it.’ … Well, I didn’t want you to paint my house,” Zemola said. “I ordered all this [security] so we wouldn’t have to do that.”

Special Events Management has, however, paid for traffic control services for various athletic events it organizes, according to records from the Department of Finance.

Duff Entertainment, the organizer for the 2024 Taste of Randolph, declined to be interviewed but said in a statement that the company has not been billed for police overtime associated with this year’s festival.

“The West Loop Community Organization (WLCO) and Duff Entertainment have confirmed that they are actively looking into this and have reached out to the City of Chicago to get clarification on next steps,” Kelli Packer, a spokesperson for Duff Entertainment, said in a statement.

Large special events are paying their way 

Unpaid police resources being poured into profit-making neighborhood street festivals aren’t the only issue. The city ultimately polices all large events that are quintessential to life and culture in Chicago, assigning officers to manage them on overtime.

Chicago deployed more than 2,400 officers at last year’s Pride Parade. Though officials sought to reduce that number this year, police brass ultimately canceled officers’ days off to staff patrols following the parade. 

The city will typically eat the costs associated with parades such as Pride, St. Patrick’s Day, Bud Billiken and the upcoming Magnificent Mile Lights Parade.

The organizers for some events, such as Lollapalooza and the Chicago Marathon, will reimburse the city for overtime. C3 Presents, which organizes Lollapalooza, was billed more than $100,000 for traffic control personnel at the concert last year, in addition to police overtime.

Meanwhile, Special Events Management was billed nearly $5,000 for traffic aides for the Abbott 5k and more than $11,000 for the Shamrock Shuffle in 2023, according to invoice data from the Finance Department. But that figure does not include the roughly 113 police officers working overtime at the Shamrock Shuffle last year. 

And while financial costs are the top concern at budget hearings, aldermen also highlighted how special events remove police from neighborhoods while contributing to officer burnout.

“We have several large-scale events on the same day,” said Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th). “Hundreds and hundreds of police officers, days off canceled, double time pay. The cash register is ringing.”

Of the 67 police officers who worked Taste of Randolph last year, 27 were working on what was supposed to be their day off. Of the roughly 350 officers working 2023’s Pride Fest, 254 — or 73% — were on a canceled day off.

During Lollapalooza weekend last year, more than 1,800 officers worked the concert weekend, accounting for 16% of the entire police force that month, according to personnel data from the Inspector General’s office.

And of those 1,800 officers at last year’s Lollapalooza, about 1,180 — or 65% — worked on their day off. More than 500 officers were pulled out of neighborhoods to staff the concert, according to an analysis of overtime data staffed to the event by unit. Additional officers from detectives to forensics were tending to crowds instead of cases.

Alderpeople are looking to overhaul the system, with many saying at DCASE’s budget hearing that the city needs to find and close the loophole it has created.

At last year’s City Council budget hearing, police Supt. Larry Snelling said police presence at street festivals was “a serious pull on manpower.”

The Police Department “does not provide private security for events, but does provide resources in the areas of the event to ensure the safety of all those living, working and visiting the area,” CBS and Block Club previously reported.

DCASE officials revealed at last week’s hearing that the department is not part of the invoicing process for reimbursement of police overtime, concerning many aldermen that permits are being issued continuously to event producers with unpaid tabs.

“We need to do a better job of identifying where we need to charge more,” O’Shea said. “We need to do a better job of when we’re permitting these events.”

This story was produced under a collaboration by Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit newsroom focused on Chicago’s neighborhoods, and CBS News Chicago. Melody Mercado contributed to this report.