I am loving the budget talks, mostly. They make me feel like the city is in much better hands than it used to be. For example, in response to a question from a Financial Advisory Committee member last Saturday, the city manager confirmed: Revenues that for the previous year had been spent out of (off-budget)…
Tag: pensions
Painting a Picture of DeKalb’s Pensions
First, let’s update our pension percentage-funded chart with the FY2013 numbers. These are from Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs). [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, ’13” group1values=”101.47, 109.49, 111.34, 107.18, 98.78, 82.83, 72.48, 73.17,…
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 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…
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…
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…