* 11/25/25 - Debt owed to City Hall has risen $1 billion during Brandon Johnson's term, money his budget could use...................
Buzz Sawyer
Debt owed to City Hall has risen $1 billion during Brandon Johnson's term, money his budget could use
The amount of bills owed to the city of Chicago but unpaid now surpasses $8 billion. Johnson’s administration plans to expand collection heading into another tough budget year.
By Mitchell Armentrout and Tim Novak Nov 25, 2025, 5:30am CSTAnother $1 billion sure would come in handy for Mayor Brandon Johnson right about now.
He’d have that much in hand to cover a massive shortfall and mend fences in the Chicago City Council during another ugly budget season if only the city were able to collect all of the fines and fees that have been issued since he took office.
A Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found that City Hall is missing out on more than $1 billion in ambulance payments, utility bills, red-light camera tickets and other unpaid debts that have gone accrued since December 2023.
Not that Johnson is the first mayor to find his Finance Department missing out on piles of cash. The city’s unpaid ledger stacks up to a whopping $8.2 billion dating to the early 1990s. That would be enough to cover about half of Johnson’s budget proposal if only he could wave a magic wand to make generations of debtors pay up.
The 30-year backlog includes:
- $810.5 million in water and sewer bills and fees, $137 million of that just this year — a 12% increase from early in Johnson’s term.
- $1.5 billion in unpaid ambulance fees, including $148 million this year.
- $3.1 billion in delinquent administrative hearing debt, including about $59 million this year — a 7% increase over the last two years.
Facing a $1.6 billion annual budget deficit, Johnson has floated several fine and fee increases.
Meantime, City Hall hasn’t gotten any better at collecting such payments under his watch.
Most of the entrenched debt is likely to never be paid off.
Michael Belsky, Johnson’s first-year city comptroller, said through a spokesperson that a new city task force “is undertaking a more targeted, data-driven approach to debt collection” and that the Finance Department “is also exploring opportunities to monetize outstanding debt.”
City officials would look to sell about $3 billion in unpaid debts amassed over the past seven years, in effect converting that debt to an asset, according to Joseph Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation, who has been in talks with City Hall about the 2026 budget. The city would sell the debts to investors, who would then try to collect on them.
“Those interested in bidding on it would understand that the city is in need of money,” said Ferguson, a former City Hall inspector general. “It’s converting a nonperforming asset into cash. It absolutely should be done — for not only balancing the 2026 budget, but it gives us time to examine the long-term fixes.
Even nibbling at the margins of the massive debt could help ease budget pressures that are expected to get worse in the years ahead amid federal funding uncertainty President Donald Trump.
“It’s clear, based on this data, that we’re not tracking debt collection and perhaps not holding people accountable enough,” Ald. Bill Conway (34th) said.
Breaking down the debt
The pile of unpaid bills just keeps growing. In 2023, the Sun-Times reported that City Hall’s unpaid tab had grown to $6.4 billion dating to the start of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s first term. Newly released city records show that figure actually was closer to $7.2 billion.
And the mountain of delinquent debts has since bulged by another $1 billion up, now up to $8.2 billion.
A 12% increase since late 2023 in unpaid utility bills — which now top $810 million — marks the steepest increase among the slew of debt categories tracked by the city.
Citing the “fundamental right to water access,” former Mayor Lori Lightfoot ended residential water shutoffs due to nonpayment in 2019, a move codified by the City Council in 2022. Officials still turn off water for business scofflaws and “in instances of waste, abuse of water supply or any danger to public health.”
Unpaid fines and fees from administrative hearings still make up the biggest chunk of money owed to the city at $3.1 billion, up 7% since late 2023.
The other biggest debts are unpaid traffic and parking tickets, still hovering near $2.3 billion, and $1.5 billion in outstanding ambulance fees.
Unpaid city ambulance bills this year alone amount to $148 million. The amount of such debt has soared since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as health care costs continue to rise.
Belsky said the Finance Department’s “broader enhanced collection strategies” include coordinating with hospitals to obtain private insurance information on delinquent ambulance fees.
Drivers have skipped out on $1.6 billion in parking tickets since 1990, including $37 million this year, $444 million in red-light camera tickets, $13 million of that this year, and $275 million in speed-camera tickets, $11 million this year. Also, nearly $318,000 in unpaid traffic-control violations have piled up since 2005, more than half of that this year.
City Hall is still tracking $452 million in what it calls cost-recovery fees since 1998 and $21.5 million in unpaid building inspection fees since 2004.
It’s targeting drivers and property owners who are seen as more likely to be able to pay up, Belsky said, by reviewing “reviewing property values and vehicle make/model, especially within higher-income ZIP codes.”
‘You’re never going to collect it’
Belsky said he’s focused on $3 billion in debts that have gone unpaid over the past seven years, which “is more current, more traceable and therefore more collectible.”
But more than half of the debts have been on the city’s books for more than a decade, meaning they’re unlikely ever to be collected. Many of those older debts are owed by people who have died, businesses that have dissolved or even fraudsters who have fled the country.
“If a water bill is unpaid from 1999, and it’s collecting penalties and fines, that’s kind of a fictional number because you’re never going to collect it,” said Amanda Kass, an assistant professor in DePaul University’s School of Public Service
Still, rising debt figures could indicate broader economic troubles. Many of the people who owe money are on payment plans with the city.
“Oftentimes, these kinds of fees disproportionately impact nonwhite, lower-income households,” Kass said. “You do want to balance debt collection with helping low-income households.”
A vehicle debt-relief program run by the city earlier this year waived some overdue fines and resulted in $18 million that otherwise was unlikely to have been collected.
“We are evaluating the expanded use of [public service announcements] to increase awareness of all debt-relief and payment-plan options, which we expect will improve both compliance and collections,” Belsky said.
City officials have said the worst scofflaws are often property owners and businesses from outside Chicago that ignore collection notices.
The city can seize vehicles and withhold business licenses. And it refers cases to collection agencies to file for liens and garnish wages. It also enlists law firms to collect on old debts.
But the city won’t name the people or entities owing the most.
“It is fundamentally inequitable for individuals or businesses who benefit from city services to ignore lawful fines, especially when they have clear ability to pay,” Belsky said.
Last month, Belsky told the City Council his agency is expanding debt checks and streamlining city payment portals.
“That same technology allows [city debt collectors] to be much more effective time-wise because they’re not going after those seven or eight different sources, so we think that’s going to lead to an increase in collection,” Belsky said during a budget hearing last month.
That effort and also having more parking aides patrolling the city next year are expected to boost parking and traffic ticket revenue by $43 million, city Budget Director Annette Guzman told the City Council.
Nearly $122 million in unpaid property taxes
In addition to the $8.2 billion backlog, city institutions have been missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax payments since 2004, according to the Cook County treasurer’s office.
The city itself is owed nearly $122 million in outstanding property taxes.
The Chicago Board of Education is owed $300.3 million. The Chicago Park District is missing out on $30.1 million, while the city’s tax-increment financing districts have been shorted $166 million. Johnson declared a record $1 billion TIF surplus to help balance his budget proposal.