The City of DeKalb has been re-growing its post-recession General Fund reserve since FY2011, when a large reduction in force coupled with windfall revenues helped the city regain its financial footing. But are annual budget surpluses an indicator we’ve set out upon the right financial path? The latest Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) is now…
NIU Enrollment by Campus — Er, Mostly
When we talk about NIU enrollment we are usually referring to the enrollment at all four campuses, which is the number NIU must report to the state. With a drop of 4.9% as we had this year, a lot of questions come up. Hypothetically speaking, what if DeKalb had lost 10% but nobody knew because…
Did the DeKalb County Board Violate the Open Meetings Act?
The new state’s attorney for the county is “reviewing” the following incident: Election of the chairman was listed on the County Board’s public agenda. Members, wanting to discuss the contentious subject of who should chair the board after a prearranged agreement fell apart during public discussion at the meeting, first suggested going into recess and…
Rockford Working Its Way to Landlord Registration Program
It’s registration without tons of new staff or inspection ordinances of dubious constitutionality. Right now, the only thing between the city and a new landlord registry is the right software, said Paul Arena, president of the Rockford Apartment Association. The property managers want the database to link to the city’s police and code enforcement reporting…
DeKalb’s IMRF Contributions and Their Budget Impacts
Putting together DeKalb’s pension picture has been like a forestry hide-and-seek. Facts are the trees and while facts have been examined, there’s often an underlying feeling that the ecosystem has not yet been adequately described. So I keep going back in. One “specimen” whose significance I failed to fully appreciate earlier is the shortfall between…
Video Comment on DeKalb’s Passing of New Housing Inspection Rules
If you haven’t read about what transpired on Monday night, here’s the report from DeKalb County Online. And the first three minutes or so of the video below is a reminder of what single-minded pursuit of a goal can get you.
Pensions & TIF in DeKalb
Except in the case of the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, DeKalb’s property taxes go toward pensions and FICA almost exclusively, and its share of your annual property tax bill is about 7%. Using these facts along with TIF revenue data, I set out to estimate how much city property tax flows into TIF funds…
Property Tax Levy & IMRF Contributions
In “DeKalb Gives First Approval to Property Tax Levy,” we get this: The aldermen had previously set the ceiling for a property tax levy at $9.67 million, and were given two options by city staff to set the request at either $9.67 million or $9.63 million – the amount the city levied last year. According…
DeKalb Property Taxes & City Pensions
The agendas for the council meetings tonight include a public hearing about setting the city’s property tax levy, which they must think will be controversial because you must wade through 112 pages of the PDF file to get to the related items (also see page 114). I was surprised to find out that the levy…
Chronicle Editorial Board Hasn’t Lived Here Very Long
Chronicle staff should live in this county for awhile before commenting on certain issues, such as what one can find today in “Our View: Falling home values a trying trend in county“. When the housing market was healthy and new homes and businesses were built at a healthy clip, the opposite was true. Property values…