Boone County Watchdog tipped me off about a new revenue source for the blog’s home county: transporting and housing federal prisoners. The full story comes from the Register Star: BELVIDERE — A negotiating firm plans to generate tens of thousands of dollars in new revenue for the Boone County jail without changing day-to-day operations. The…
Look Who’s NOT Getting Comp Time
The employment contract between City of DeKalb and its new manager, Anne Marie Gaura, is part of the agenda for Monday’s council meeting. I’m pretty pleased about this pick — Gaura’s resume looks the best to me of all the city manager candidates in terms of range and depth of experience — and I’m pleased…
Chronicle on the Proposed New TIF Districts
The Daily Chronicle has come out against the proposed Sycamore Road TIF District, pointing to Mayor Rey’s recent comment that two developers are interested in one of the properties even with no incentives. So why bring tax increment financing into the equation? It certainly might give the city some more money it can spend on…
DeKalb’s Compensated Absences Banking
This is more from the June 2013 Benefits Hours Report I was telling you about yesterday. [table id=79 /] You can see that the banked comp (560) truly is banked, and the administrator-depositors are enjoying nice, risk-free annual increases when raises and COLAs are applied. The caps on unused sick leave are very high in…
Comp Time Champs
***Clarification*** added 12/3 due to a question that came up in this Facebook discussion: Firefighters often work overtime and they almost always receive overtime pay for it. However, according to their contract they might with permission accumulate a little comp time instead, up to 205 hours, after which no more comp time is permitted to…
November 25 Council Agenda
The city has put up another meeting agenda for tomorrow that’s a revision of the original, so all you early birds will have to read the new one. However, keep the old one handy because they didn’t include the rest of the packet with the revision. Highlights: Item 1: Another hit to the Public Safety…
Obtain a Hunk of Junk from City of DeKalb
From Public Notice Illinois: Notice of Request for Proposals: Automobile Salvage The City of DeKalb, pursuant to Court Order in DeKalb Circuit Court Case No. 12 MR 79, has acquired salvage titles for approximately seventy two (72) automobiles, trailers light trucks, medium duty trucks and tow trucks ( “vehicles “) as a component of its…
DeKalb Public Library and Greed
In a post from January 10, I told you I’d continue trying to get information about the state’s Public Library Construction Grant Program since we knew so few of the institutions that won them. Part of the reason it has taken so long to get back to you is that I goofed up my chance…
DeKalb – Firefighter Quid Pro Quo
The City of Springfield is expecting to approve a new contract with its firefighters’ union soon. Golly, I wish we had that kind of news coverage. Remember the last-minute hoop we had to jump through to find what the 2011 contract with our firefighters was about? The Springfield story reminded me that the longish closed…
Permit & Inspection Fees on DeKalb Council Agenda Tonight
I’ve isolated the comparison charts for you and put them after the jump (or you could teleport to the agenda instead and go to page 5 of the PDF file). First, though, I’d like to spend a minute on city staff members’ reasons for requesting approval of new fees and fee hikes: The changes of…