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…
Tag: pensions
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…
Snapshot of DeKalb’s pension trends through 2020
The chart below tracks the unfunded liabilities of DeKalb’s Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF), police (PD), and fire (FD) pensions. We expect total pension liabilities will go up with raises, cost of living adjustments, etc. However, the unfunded portions of the liabilities should not. Actuarially determined annual pension contributions are supposed to ensure they don’t…
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…
Police & Fire Pensions are only part of DeKalb’s liability story
The Better Government Association has just rolled out a statewide police and fire pension database. It tracks public safety pensions for every municipality, township, and special district (e.g., fire protection district) that have one or both types of pension funds. According to this database, DeKalb’s fire pension showed a net liability of $42.7 million and…
OPEB: DeKalb’s unfunded liability you’ve probably never heard of
I don’t generally gush over DeKalb’s choices of consultants, but I believe EPI was worth every penny – both times – because of their plain talk about our financial situation and the state of city operations. Too bad DeKalb didn’t take some important advice. One of the harsh realities was and is the OPEB, which…
Pension Plan Membership as a Factor in Jump of Net Pension Liability
DeKalb’s latest Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) is out. It covers Fiscal Year 2016, which ended June 30, 2016. The big news is the net pension liability. Public safety expenses related to the operations of both the Police Department and Fire Department accounted for the largest share of expenses at $33,400,660 or 50.1% of the…
New Annual Financial Report is Out
City of DeKalb released its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for fiscal year 2015, which ended June 30. I’m sure city staff will also release the Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR) as they did last year. It’s a dumbed-down version of the CAFR that nobody asked them to compile, but they get some sort of…
Post-Recessionary Trends & Responses
The City of DeKalb released its FY2014 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report last month, and as usual there’s plenty to digest. A large part of this report draws data from supplemental reports found in the back of the CAFR, some of which track the past 10 fiscal years and are therefore useful for understanding the lingering…
Sifting Out What’s Important to the Property Tax-Pension Funding Discussion
DeKalb city staff have come up with a proposal to raise the city’s property tax levy by 10%. Daily Chronicle reports that the council gave initial approval on Monday. Here’s how the city is presenting the recommendation: City staff want to move away from the current practice of using the general fund to pay for…