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…
Category: Payment Due?
$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,…
DeKalb’s Shortage of Magic Rabbits
As the city ponders a property tax hike of 37% as well as water rate and fee “adjustments,” you may wonder how DeKalb has got itself mired in financial straits. It’s actually nothing new. DeKalb’s budget issues are — and have been since at least 2005 — the result of snatching nearly every penny of…
City of DeKalb’s Website Still Has Accessibility Issues – Updated
***Update*** 6/25/2015: I finally got a response to my letter telling council and top management staff about accessibility issues with the newly-launched city website. Someone had handed off the letter to DeKalb’s management analyst, Lauren Stott (one of the staff members who withheld estimates for a simple accessibility fix vs. a complete redesign, despite direct…
A City Narrative and the Aardvark that Ate It
On the February 9 DeKalb city council meeting agenda was this action item: 2. Resolution 2015-011 Waiving Competitive Bidding and Authorizing the Execution of a Website Design Agreement with CivicPlus in an Amount not to Exceed $56,189 in Year One. Staff said they didn’t have time to put out Requests for Proposals (RFPs). They claimed…
Website Design and DeKalb’s “Suitcase Mentality”
The city council voted Monday on a measure to waive the customary bidding process and award a contract to out-of-towners for a new custom website. Staff insisted only CivicPlus could make DeKalb’s official website comply with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) rules within a 4-month deadline negotiated with the U.S. Department of Justice. Some city…
DeKalb’s Freakishly High Sales Tax Rate Might Actually be Good for Something
**Update** 1/26. Related: “Sales tax coffers could get boost with new law”. Discusses the Marketplace Fairness Act and its impact (if it ever passes the U.S. House) on state revenues. **Update** 1 p.m. Related: “Now comes the Internet Sales Consultants”. It provides more food for thought on this scheme, as well as a description of…
Variable Revenues are Replacing Taxes in DeKalb & This is Not Good News
A few days ago in another post I said this: Fine/fee revenue can be highly variable, as we’ve seen with the disappearance of building permit revenues. TIF districts have time limits and both of ours expire at the end of the decade. These are appropriate sources for making capital improvements as you can. They are…
Post-Recessionary Trends & Responses
The City of DeKalb released its FY2014 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report last month, and as usual there’s plenty to digest. A large part of this report draws data from supplemental reports found in the back of the CAFR, some of which track the past 10 fiscal years and are therefore useful for understanding the lingering…
DeKalb’s Police Department Overspent by $700,000 Last Fiscal Year
Overtime comprised most of DeKalb PD’s excessive spending over budgeted amounts for FY2014, but another major culprit was spending in the “Commodities” category that came to roughly twice as much as the $260,000 budgeted. Commodities were clearly under-budgeted in 7 of 10 accounts in that category and in a couple cases downright unrealistically. For example,…