During the Committee of the Whole meeting Monday, city staff will present a report showing all of the estimated annual savings they’ve achieved for the FY16 budget and beyond. Some of these cuts — in health care plans, comp time policy, and efficiency through technology in particular — do appear to be real. Bravo, City…
Category: City Watch
OMA and Real Estate Deals
City of DeKalb just paid for an appraisal of the old Ducky’s/Otto’s building at Lincoln and First. I haven’t heard a peep otherwise, but mindful of possible next steps I’ve done a little homework. The Open Meetings Act (OMA) has a couple things to say about what a local government can do in closed session…
New Illinois Law for Local Gov Audits Is Doing the Trick
Here’s a new state law we can all get behind: Public Act 098-0738, which requires certain disclosures pertaining to city and county audits. Introduced by Rep. Tom Demmer, the law went into effect this month. Here’s another version with the deets. Of particular interest to me is the now-required sharing of the auditors’ letters to…
New Annual Financial Report is Out
City of DeKalb released its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for fiscal year 2015, which ended June 30. I’m sure city staff will also release the Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR) as they did last year. It’s a dumbed-down version of the CAFR that nobody asked them to compile, but they get some sort of…
Retail on the Bottom
David Patzelt of Shodeen Group, LLC, sent a nice thank-you letter to the DeKalb city manager for attending a meeting between Shodeen principals and city officials in the matter of Shodeen’s latest project proposal. The letter was included in the agenda packet for Wednesday’s meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission. It outlines Shodeen’s arguments…
Just So You Know, DeKalb’s Email Disclaimer is Garbage
This is popping up on emails from City of DeKalb. Disclaimer: This is a transmission from the City of DeKalb that is confidential and proprietary. If you are not the intended recipient, copying or distributing the contents of this message is expressly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please destroy it and…
School District Trying to Double-Dip City TIF Dollars
Monday’s city council Committee of the Whole (CoW) meeting includes this: Consideration of a request by DeKalb School District #428 for TIF assistance in the amount of $2,000,000. The assistance would go toward construction-related improvements to two schools that lie in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, Founders Elementary and Clinton Rosette Middle School. Here’s the…
What the hiring spree has ruined
Former DeKalb Alderman Pam Verbic wrote current Mayor Rey a detailed letter regarding the upcoming property tax levy vote. Find it here. I hope you will read the whole thing. Each of Ms. Verbic’s points is well taken and stands on its own. I don’t intend to rehash the letter. But her #4 relates closely…
$800,000 in Expenditure Cuts? Lol. Try $2.3M in Increased Personnel Costs
One argument in favor of hiking property taxes in City of DeKalb is that the city has reduced general operations (General Fund/GF) budgeted expenditures by $800,000 from last fiscal year to this one, which ostensibly shows that DeKalb has already cut expenditures to the bone. Hogwash. The fact is, DeKalb has a runaway spending problem,…
Resident Officer Programs: One of These Things is Not Like the Others
**UPDATE 11/24** Via email, the city still maintains that the redaction “facially” applied to its FOIA response. However: [A]fter further discussion with the Police Department, we believe that the Resident Officer Program’s mission is furthered by engaging with the public wherever possible, and where doing so does not endanger public or officer safety. Accordingly, the…