DeKalb mayor Cohen Barnes is hoping to become the Democratic candidate in this month’s primary election for Illinois House District 76 representative. In his introductory statement during a candidates’ forum, Mayor Barnes said, “We’ve hired over 20 police officers in the last year alone — and firefighters.” The statement is unusual in at least two…
Tag: fire department
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…
DeKalb might be doing some juggling with fire department budget
Below is the year-to-date expenditure report for fire operations for December 2020. Two things are startling about it. First you see that overtime expenses reached $1.1 million for the year, which exceeds the budget for o.t. by $688,000. Then see how DeKalb failed to make a final pension contribution of $708,000 on time, which was…
IRS revoked 501(c)3 status from DeKalb Firefighters Historical Foundation 2+ years ago
As part of staff reports during Monday’s regular city council meeting, the mayor read a statement from Todd Stoffa, a captain with the fire department who is also president of the DeKalb Firefighters Historical Foundation. On behalf of DeKalb Firefighters Historical Foundation, I would like to express my sincere apologies for the mishap that led…
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…
Sustainable is the Last Thing This Is
A Chronicle article last week talks about all the new building, equipment and personnel the City of DeKalb is investing into its fire department. I read the article after just having skimmed through the city’s check register for August. The police department spent, among other things, $125,000+ on software and $2600 on the new dog,…
The $65,000 “Slight” Expansion of Scope
The August 12 city council regular meeting agenda contains several items that are staff requests to waive competitive bidding for purchases and contracts. Since there seemed quite a list, I took a closer look to see if they seemed legit. Most did. Then I saw the following: 5. APPROVAL OF A STAFF REQUEST TO WAIVE…
DeKalb’s Hiring Spree
The City of DeKalb got rid of 30+ employees at the beginning of FY2011 in order to balance its budget. There followed a year of quiet, but now we’re in the midst of a hiring spree. [table id=70 /] Here is what it has done to personnel expenses. [table id=72 /] And here’s what the…
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…
Comment on 8/27/2012 Council Meeting Agenda
OK, Council, you said you’d bond out no more than $12 million but now staff is coming at you with a proposal for borrowing $14 million. It’s not that Peace Road and the fire stations don’t need attention. They do — especially Station 2. But is this really the way to do it? Bundling the…