Early last month, DeKalb’s city council considered whether they should waive the usual bidding process and immediately sign a contract with a website designer who appears to be “besties” with the city manager. The reason for wanting to waive bidding? Staff claimed the city had a crisis foisted upon it by the U.S. Department of…
Municipalities Could Face Cuts in State Funding
The governor’s proposal to make huge cuts in funding to state universities is the big news today, but municipalities are facing a similar threat. At Monday’s council meeting, DeKalb’s finance director will present the mid-year budget report. The city appears to be pretty much on target for the current fiscal year, but administrators are concerned…
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…
Police Station Construction Report, New Custom Website on Monday’s Council Agenda
I placed a couple links and short comments on these topics with the Facebook Group in case anyone feels chatty this weekend.
Former DeKalb County Treasurer is Banned from Banking Activities
Remember Mark Todd? He’s the former VP of Farmers and Traders State Bank in Shabbona who got himself appointed DeKalb County Treasurer, ran unopposed for the same office as the bank failed, and then resigned to move to Hawaii. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is just finishing up with him. The FDIC considered the…
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,…
Airport Operating Deficits
The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for FY2014 is out. So far the document is only accessible as part of the December 8 council meeting agenda, but at some point will probably appear on the city’s downloads page under the Finance title. Let’s stick a toe in by first visiting the DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport…