The top-line figure of the SF budget is misleading because it includes the SFO airport. This arrangement is unusual in the United States. Chicago operates ORD a

The top-line figure of the SF budget is misleading because it includes the SFO airport. This arrangement is unusual in the United States. Chicago operates ORD and MDW out of a separate budget, like most US cities do [1]. Notice the large difference in the size of Chicago's enterprise budget [2] and San Francisco's enterprise budget [3]. SFO is considered part of the enterprise budget of the City and County of San Francisco, but it's a separate fund entirely for Chicago. (As an aside, this setup means that the mayor of San Francisco doubles as the CEO of the SFO airport, which is also unusual.) [1]: https://www.flychicago.com/business/CDA/factsfigures/Pages/financial.aspx https://www.flychicago.com/business/CDA/factsfigures/Pages/f... [2]: https://budgetblog.ctbaonline.org/chicagos-city-budget-101-5bbea4d9b3fd https://budgetblog.ctbaonline.org/chicagos-city-budget-101-5... [3]: https://datasf.org/blog/unpacking-a-10-billion-budget/ https://datasf.org/blog/unpacking-a-10-billion-budget/