***I’ve made a correction (asterisked in body of post) on 3/6/2026 to an earlier statement that suggested LGDF was originally legislated.*** Articles circulating about how municipalities are being “robbed” of income tax revenues from the state turn out to be nothingburgers once you look more closely at how Illinois does revenue sharing. Municipalities and counties…
Tag: finance
5 issues ignored so far in City of DeKalb’s budget plans
Need for a finance director. DeKalb’s finance director left this year and it looks like there’s no plan to replace her. That’s too bad. Besides the risk of returning to subpar audits, a qualified finance director could fill in for the city manager if needed, which is particularly important since the assistant city manager’s position…
DeKalb’s plans for a new fire station don’t make sense
Management staff at City of DeKalb are proposing to build a fourth fire station on South Malta Road, next to the property housing Schnucks. Here are three reasons to question the plan. Let’s expand on that last thought because it’s extra bizarre. The area of greatest demand is the northwest quadrant, but management doesn’t want…
County board votes to list DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing Center for sale — but that’s not all
DeKalb County Board voted last night to authorize the marketing of DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing Center (DCRNC) for sale. Here’s the original resolution. Resolution R2022-40: A Resolution Authorizing the Sale, Transfer, orother Disposition of the DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing Center in Accordance with 55 ILCS 5-21001 of the Illinois Counties Code. The DeKalb…
Other counties’ experiences suggest that selling DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing is unlikely to provide a quick fix
The Executive Committee of the DeKalb County Board has voted to place a resolution authorizing preparations for a sale of DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing Center (DCRNC) on the agenda for next week’s regular meeting of the full board. During discussion of DCRNC’s plight, the chair brought up the sale of the nursing facility once…
Nursing home sales and ownership, and our local situation
Recently the DeKalb County Board signed a contract with Marcus & Millichap (M&M) that has two phases: first, M&M as consultant in deciding what to do with our DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing Center (DCRNC); and secondly, M&M as broker of a sale with a 3% commission attached. If this sounds like a conflict of…
We deserve an examination of the nursing home failures
The DeKalb County Board used more than an hour of its Committee of the Whole meeting last week to start discussing options in determining the fate of DeKalb County Nursing & Rehab Center (DCNRC) in responding to its financial crisis. In my opinion, the board and administrator have acted responsibly and transparently from the moment…
Another source of revenue loss for DeKalb County Nursing & Rehab is confirmed
The latest on the DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing Center (DCRNC) financial situation comes from a 35-minute discussion during DeKalb County Board’s Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting November 10. I’ve written about revenue losses due to low census, and increased expenses because of the facility’s dependence on outside agencies for staffing. Now county staff…
DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing’s management agreement
This is the third post in a series about DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing Center (DCRNC) and its financial issues. First post is here and the second, here. In the second post, I said we’d take a look at the budgeteers for DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing Center (DCRNC). While the DCRNC Operating Board, the…
DeKalb’s Finance Division is a story of loss and low priority
DeKalb’s city council has so far failed to face the troubling results of its last annual audit. This has led to a failure to recognize the connections between those results and the turnover and staff reductions in Finance Division, including the loss of a full-time finance director. And the squeeze is still on for this…