As in the last post, I’ve gathered year-over-year information using City of DeKalb’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) as reported to the Illinois Comptroller. All governments have to do CAFRs and we ordinary citizens are supposed to be able to understand them. As a layperson I try to figure out why and how the numbers…
Tag: cafr
The Biernacki Regime: A Cautionary Tale
The City of DeKalb did me a HUGE favor. When I first went to look for the FY2013 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) earlier this month, it hadn’t been uploaded to the city’s website yet (though it is there now). So, I turned to the Illinois Comptroller’s online collection of local government reports instead. 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…
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…
Mercer County & the Role of Transparency in Good Government
Illinois’ Mercer County lies south of the Quad Cities and comprises part of its metro area. Perhaps you’ve heard that the county’s treasurer, Mike Bertelsen, has been arrested and charged with stealing at least $13,000 from the county’s 911 Fund, the result of investigations that followed a forensic audit in the county office. The Illinois…
Need & Recommendations for Medical Cost Containment
A couple weeks ago I mentioned that DeKalb’s financial consultants made recommendations for medical cost containment deserving of their own post. Here it is, finally. Turns out it’s not just the recommendations after all and it’s very long, so grab a cuppa something and make the jump when you’ve got time to hang out for…
DeKalb’s Pension Picture Updated
I’ve added FY2012 numbers to the set of charts you’ll find in DeKalb’s Pension Funding Progress. They come from the latest Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). [easychart type=”line” width=”420″ title=”Yearly Funding of Pensions by Percentage Funded” groupnames=”IMRF, Police, Fire” valuenames=”’99, ’00, ’01, ’02, ’03, ’04, ’05, ’06, ’07, ’08, ’09, ’10, ’11, ’12” group1values=”101.47, 109.49,…
DeKalb’s Budgetary Reserves Do Not Mean What You Think They Mean
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…
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…
DeKalb’s Pension Funding Progress
The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) includes a table called “Schedule of Funding Progress” for each pension fund that the city is responsible for. An actuary determines the fund assets and liability, and from these are calculated the percentage that the fund is funded as well as the unfunded liability in dollars. I’ve pulled numbers…