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All 39 departments / City of Chicago

Department of Buildings

Headcount, pay, and awarded contracts for the Department of Buildings, computed live from the City of Chicago's open data. Salaried and hourly employees are reported separately, because the city records only one of the two pay fields for each person.

231

People on the payroll

Salaried and hourly combined

$136,656

Median salaried pay

Across 230 salaried staff

$137,295

Average salaried pay

Excludes hourly employees

$31,577,898

Total salaried payroll

Annual, before benefits

Hourly staff

1

Hourly employees

$17.05

Median hourly rate

$17.05

Average hourly rate

Hourly rates are not annualized here. Actual annual earnings depend on hours worked and overtime, neither of which the payroll extract publishes.

Most common job titles in the Department of Buildings

  1. Building/Construction Inspector51
  2. Plumbing Inspector25
  3. Electrical Inspector21
  4. Ventilation And Furnace Inspector12
  5. Administrative Assistant12
  6. Cooling Plant Inspector10
  7. Elevator Inspector9
  8. Architect IV7
  9. Project Manager - Buildings7
  10. Staff Asst7

Contracts awarded

The city's contracts dataset records 11,251 contract actions naming the Department of Buildings, with award amounts totaling $730,364,407. Award amounts can be negative when a contract is revised downward or funds are de-obligated, so the total is a net figure rather than a spending total. Departments are named slightly differently in the contracts and payroll datasets, so this covers contracts filed under the exact name "DEPARTMENT OF BUILDINGS".

  1. Alliance Demolition Services, Inc.$8,000,000
    Demolition ServicesApproved Apr 4, 2024
  2. A. Epstein & Sons International, Inc$7,500,000
    PROFESSIONAL MUNICIPAL CODE COMPLIANCE REVIEW SERVICESApproved Jan 29, 2014
  3. Globetrotters Engineering Corporation, Attn: David Feller$7,500,000
    PROFESSIONAL MUNICIPAL CODE COMPLIANCE REVIEW SERVICESApproved Jan 29, 2014
  4. Primera Engineers, Limited$7,500,000
    PROFESSIONAL MUNICIPAL CODE COMPLIANCE REVIEW SERVICESApproved Jan 29, 2014
  5. D.B. Sterlin Consultants, Inc.$7,500,000
    PROFESSIONAL MUNICIPAL CODE COMPLIANCE REVIEW SERVICESApproved Jan 29, 2014

Sources

Pay figures are base pay only — no overtime, benefits, or pension costs. Medians are the middle record of the ordered list, computed over employees with that pay field filled in.

Related pages

Department of Business Affairs and Consumer ProtectionDepartment of Planning and DevelopmentCivilian Office of Police AccountabilityDepartment of Human ResourcesOffice of the MayorOffice of Inspector GeneralAll City of Chicago salariesSearch every employee by name or titleCity job titlesPay ranges for each titleCity vendorsWho the city buys from

Department of Buildings FAQ

How many people work for the Department of Buildings?
The City of Chicago's payroll extract lists 231 employees in the Department of Buildings — 230 paid an annual salary and 1 paid an hourly rate. The city republishes the extract periodically, so the figure moves as people are hired and leave.
What does the Department of Buildings pay?
Median pay for salaried employees in the Department of Buildings is $136,656 a year, and the average is $137,295. Hourly employees are reported separately, at a median rate of $17.05 an hour. These are base pay figures — they do not include overtime, benefits, or pension costs.
What jobs does the Department of Buildings employ?
The most common job titles in the Department of Buildings are Building/Construction Inspector, Plumbing Inspector, Electrical Inspector, Ventilation And Furnace Inspector, Administrative Assistant. The full list of titles in the department, with headcount for each, is ranked on this page.
How much has the Department of Buildings awarded in contracts?
The city's contracts dataset records 11,251 contract actions naming the Department of Buildings, totaling $730,364,407 in award amounts. That total is a net figure: revisions and de-obligations are recorded as negative award amounts, so it is not the same as total spending.