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.