Aldermanic menu money
Where each ward spends its million and a half.
Every year each of Chicago's fifty ward offices gets roughly $1.5 million in "menu" money to spend on local infrastructure, and chooses how. This page shows the choices: what share went to streets, lighting, sidewalks, alleys, parks, cameras, schools and walking or biking, ward by ward and year by year since 2005.
Start with a question
- In 2025 one ward put nearly all its menu money into repaving, and another under 4%. Where does yours fall?
- Twelve wards spent nothing on walking or biking projects in 2025. Which wards spent the most?
- Not every ward spends its full allotment. Who left the most unspent?
- Repaving went from about 38% of the average ward's menu money in 2005 to 58% by 2015. What did wards buy before?
- How much more does a block of resurfacing cost than it used to, and does it depend on the ward?
- What did my ward buy last year, street by street?
How to read this
A percent is a share, not a score.
Forty percent on streets means forty cents of every menu dollar that year went to resurfacing. It says what the office chose, not whether the choice was good.
Whose decision this is.
The alderperson's office proposes the projects. Residents may be asked (some wards run a participatory vote), but the signature is the office's. This is a fact about an office, not a condition of a neighborhood.
What "budget used" means.
The share of that year's allotment actually committed to projects. Money left over rolls forward, so a low year is often followed by a high one.
Where the numbers come from.
The city's published menu program books, one line per project. Shares are computed from the dollars on those lines. Before 2019 some lines could not be placed on a map; that affects the "spread" measure, not the shares.