DeKalb County has placed online a variety of property tax information at DeKalbCounty.org. Among the reports are breakdowns of Equalized Assessment Value (EAV) by type of zoning, which include farm, residential, commercial, industrial, and railroad properties. In City of DeKalb, the two top property tax-producing categories are residential and commercial. You can see below that…
Tag: TIF
College Town Partners is All About TIF
Yes, “is.” Emails obtained by Michael and Misty Haji-Sheikh of Preserve Our Neighborhoods show that even though collaborators ultimately rejected formal incorporation of College Town Partners in May 2014, the intention remained to suck sweet, sweet tax dollars out of City of DeKalb via Tax Increment Financing (not even getting into NIU and use of…
School District Trying to Double-Dip City TIF Dollars
Monday’s city council Committee of the Whole (CoW) meeting includes this: Consideration of a request by DeKalb School District #428 for TIF assistance in the amount of $2,000,000. The assistance would go toward construction-related improvements to two schools that lie in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, Founders Elementary and Clinton Rosette Middle School. Here’s the…
Resident Officer Programs: One of These Things is Not Like the Others
**UPDATE 11/24** Via email, the city still maintains that the redaction “facially” applied to its FOIA response. However: [A]fter further discussion with the Police Department, we believe that the Resident Officer Program’s mission is furthered by engaging with the public wherever possible, and where doing so does not endanger public or officer safety. Accordingly, the…
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…
“Conversation with an Engineer” by Strong Towns
The following is a production of StrongTowns.org. Advisory: Note: Strong Towns is not responsible for any mental duress resulting from repeated watching of this video. We are also not responsible for angry reactions from planners and engineers confronted with the illogic of their world view. If watching as part of a group, we recommend having…
FAC Using the Faulty Street Repair Numbers Too
Last night DeKalb’s Financial Advisory Committee began the work of figuring out how to pay for the claimed need of an additional $6.6 million per year for street repairs. Unfortunately, they are still using the same faulty numbers — faulty in the ways I explained here. If the FAC is working with bad numbers, so…
Some of DeKalb’s Street Funding Woes Arise from Desire for Buildings and an IDOT Audit
The numbers are the amounts budgeted for streets combining two line items, Street Maintenance/Repairs (8632) and Street Construction/Reconstruction (8633). It does not include alleys or permanent street improvements (e.g., Taylor Street widening). Keep in mind, what’s budgeted may not always reflect what’s spent, either. [table id=84 /] Observations: The Motor Fuel Tax Fund is taking…
DeKalb Taxpayers: Ready to Pony Up for a New Convention Center?
In July 2013, the city council of DeKalb approved the DeKalb City Center plan, an update of the 2007 Downtown Revitalization Plan. One of the key components of the plan is: Leverage TIF to study the feasibility of and potentially promote the development of additional City Center traffic generators, such as a hotel/conference center, children’s…
So DeKalb Has a Streets Problem — Is TIF or a Sales Tax Hike the Answer?
This week’s number: $33 million The city’s streets could need $33 million in repairs over the next five years, but a key funding source for the work will dry up by the end of the decade. That has city leaders considering options including increasing the sales tax to generate more revenue. Of the $1.5 million…