28 comments

1. Comment by Herb Rubin on November 12, 2008 at 2:00 pm

   Yinn,
   I agree with the being over budget on fiscal control measure is wrong. .

   Have you asked either Tom T or Mike Peddle to elaborate on their reasons. I was planning to but went home early both meetings. Toughing out a meeting on anti-histamines is a bit much, though perhaps they help.

   I respect both people’s opinions but neither persons reasons were elaborated enough at the meeting to move me on the issue, either way.

   Okay, this time I am not defending the decision (nor opposing it) i simply don’t know.

   But let’s try some guesses on why.

   In working in my narrow areas of professional expertise whenever possible I also consulted (pro bono of course, academics don’t have money) with others just to make sure I was right (and often found I wasn’t). Structuring debt, tif, timing of borrowing etc. are such areas in which local officials often lack expertise. Outsiders can be more objective with respect to the airport m or dare to tackle sacred cows in protective services.

   Second, and more cynical. Sometimes consultants are hired to say what everyone knows but are afraid to articulate. So perhaps the consultants could be tougher on labor costs.

   Again, I’m just guessing and not defending (nor attacking) the decision as I don’t know enough to say one way or the other.

   I really do wish the council or advisory board had presented the second paragraph on justifying the contract.

   Herb

2. Comment by Ivan Krpan on November 12, 2008 at 2:56 pm

   I don’t know if it’s fair to shoot Tom T. and Mike Peddle. Our budget shortfalls are due primarily to the way we use the monies. The General Fund method can be a free for all especially when you give the City Manager the ability to go into contract $20,000.00 or less. I’m sure that this has been abused once or twice.

   Tom and Mike with their backgrounds would hire an outside company to do just this. I think we as a community are upset that staff and council has let it get so bad. It’s just not this council or this staff. It’s the way the city does business and I think that would be a great place to start the fix.

   Budget lines for needs. Nothing gets built or purchased without at least 20% cash down, maybe even 30%. Line items set up for these purchases and designated revenue streams go right to that budget line. No more central bank (General Fund), the way it is used today. The GF should be used more for small items that pop up, not major items such as road and sidewalk repairs, bridges, police stations etc.

   If they go over budget, just as they are with the consultant, it must come from another items line. This way, they will do a better job getting bids on the private work being performed.

3. Comment by yinn on November 12, 2008 at 3:32 pm

   Herb, if either of these two gentlemen had reasons for their views that would have delighted me (and a few thousand others) then it is a shame they didn’t share them. Until they do, they go into the category of “likes to spend other people’s money without considering the impacts during a deep recession on people of modest means.”

4. Comment by Mac McIntyre on November 12, 2008 at 5:35 pm

   According to Dave Baker the $60,000 expense will save millions of tax dollars. If true then it is a great deal.

   Herb: Sometimes consultants are hired to say what everyone knows but are afraid to articulate. So perhaps the consultants could be tougher on labor costs.

   The only way millions of dollars could be saved is through staff reductions. And those reductions would have to be lay-offs, not early retirements, for savings to be substantial. If decision makers are afraid to articulate that then rest assured they will not implement any such recommendation. Little if anything meaningful can be saved on labor costs after contracts are signed, and except for police, they have been signed.

   The pension debits increased significantly and I believe that reflects the recent early retirements budget fix. Also, according to Mike Peddle, the police and fire pension investment portfolios have underperformed like many 401k’s in the private sector. However, public pension investment portfolios are guaranteed by taxpayers… at least to the point that the pension check cannot be reduced regardless of how poor of an investment choice was made. That’s why millions of dollars was pumped into the vote no on the illegal-but-we-judges-who-draw-public-pensions-can-find-no-remedy Illinois Con Con ballot question in the last weeks before the General Election.

5. Comment by Herb Rubin on November 12, 2008 at 8:03 pm

   okay mac,
   You also were on the financial advisory board and have looked closely at city data.

   Are you recommending layoffs? If so where and with what service consequences?

   More general, if you were the consultant what would you recommend now.

   The county is also predicting an increase in pension costs and tax rate based on those costs and I don’t think they have an early retirement program. Suspect that situation is systemic.

   I guess what I’m saying is what do we cut in local government.

   (An aside: my close and dear one wrote (I think 4 books) dealing with budget cutbacks in government. You might find them fun to read.)

6. Comment by Ed Pevonka on November 12, 2008 at 9:07 pm

   City Barbs

   I have been waiting for this topic to come up and I will share my thoughts in a four part response

   Although I agree that DeKalb is facing some financial turmoil the situation is not unique to DeKalb. Several other Municipalities have and or are facing these same financial constraints and several have already completed their financial reviews. One simply needs to read the Chicagoland Section of the Chicago Tribune to follow the results of other studies. Remarkable almost all of the “other” studies point to areas that have been discussed by the DeKalb Council with little or no action taken in the past. Since little or no action has been taken on these issues in the past what would make one believe that this council would now follow this consultant’s recommendations. In other words: Why would the City consider spending over $60,000.00 for a financial study without a firm commitment to follow that studies recommendations after the completion of the review?

   The financial consultant will not be able to fix the problems the city is facing. They will likely make recommendations to the council but it will ultimately be the council’s decision to make. Since I have not seen any real decision makers on the council I do not feel that it would be wise to spend this amount of money when, in my opinion, nothing will be done.

   I will try to explain what I see as the major causes of the City’s financial problems. Also I would bet anyone these issues will be addressed by the financial consultant and be considered the major decisions the city must address in confronting their budget woes. In other words save the 60k and resolve the following 4 issues

   MY four parts to follow.

   Pevo

7. Comment by Ed Pevonka on November 12, 2008 at 9:11 pm

   PART ONE
   TIF DISTRICTS

   One of the most serious situations facing the Municipalities is the ever increasing use, expansion and extension of TIF Districts. This is not to say that TIF Districts are not a good thing. What it does say is that TIF Districts have grown to the extent that Development projects are now seriously affecting the delivery of city services.

   It can be agued that TIF Districts are a good idea when City’s have the excess in funding to divert some taxes to rehabilitate certain areas of the City. I don’t think they were every meant to expand development at the expense of cutting City services. Studies have shown that Cities are getting to heavily involved in development and need to return to the delivery of basic services. In my opinion DeKalb is clearly in the category. Two examples stick out:

   One is the recent purchase of a skating rink using TIF funds for the downtown area. With the drastic cuts being made to the city service providing departments one wonders how the TIF funds can have the ability to fund such a project.

   Second is the anticipated increase in Property Taxes to meet the City’s funding mandates for its pension funds. I would ask this question. Would this tax increase be needed if property taxes collected today in the TIF Districts were not diverted to development and used to fund these pension expenses? The council is considering raising the property tax rate by .05 to meet the pension demands but remember how TIF works. Only those property taxes collected “outside” the TIF district will be used to fund the pensions. Property taxes “inside “ the TIF will be diverted to the TIF funds. One could argue that the pending increase in Property Taxes is just as much of an increase for development of the TIF Districts as it is for the Pension Funds but only those “outside” of TIF will be asked to cover these pension costs.

   There is a reason these Downtown “plans” remained plans for a very long time. Remember is was Mayer FVB who said we have enough plans we need to implement them. We are seeing that implementation does have its costs and effects on the budget.

   CONCLUSION.

   The financial advisor will recommend that the City clearly state what its intentions are in relation to TIF Districts and the redevelopment of Downtown and other TIF areas. Decision time for the Council will be how much funding to we take away from services in the future to complete this development. In other words is the City in the Service delivery business or the development business. I believe in 2011 the City TIF Sales tax expires which is about 1.3 million per year. Decision time Develop or provide basic services. I my opinion the delivery of basic services is adversely affected by the present TIF programs and drastic measures must be taken to return he City to a service provider rather than a commercial developer.

8. Comment by Mac McIntyre on November 12, 2008 at 9:21 pm

   Herb, I think you and me and the illegal-but-we-judges-who-draw-public-pensions-can-find-no-remedy Illinois Con Con ballot question all agree the pension problem is systemic. I would argue hard that public pension investment portfolios should in no way be guaranteed by taxpayers but it looks like you and I had to guarantee the investment returns to the subprime mortgage profiteers. Win one, lose one I guess. Or maybe we both lose?

   I just don’t want my generation’s legacy to be: “Good riddance!”

   Layoffs might have been avoided before contracts were signed and management pay plans adjusted-up-for-internal-equity were approved. Most, whether public or private sector employees, would exchange less pay for no pay in the worst case scenario. Less raise or no pay begins to sound better. Negotiations are not for the popularity seekers (council). That’s why we should take Mike Larson’s advice and hire outside negotiators instead of adjusted-up-for-internal-equity-administrators and put all contracts in the same year. Hmmm, I wonder if $60,000 with an optional $15,000 bonus would… never mind… too late.

   But now we must cut expenses or increase living costs. You asked where I’d make cuts.

   Hardline accountability should be held like fire to the feet of the Information Technology department and they should be empowered to implement advances necessary to replace some assistant department directors. If those cuts could not be made through technology then that department should be all but eliminated because the investments taxpayers have made in that department were unwise and unwarranted.

   That’s why we should heed Cohen Barnes advice for VOIP and virtual staff meetings as well as digital job reporting. The City of DeKalb should also ask its residents to join in a community effort to create a paperless government. That’s rather green republican of me, huh? There would be no reduction in services. Efficiency costs less.

   Despite having hired an independent contractor, during closed session, to head up a rental inspection department, that was rejected by the city council, we continued to pay that contractor and budgeted that department’s expenditure that I believe is around $250,000. Positions related to that budget expenditure should be eliminated. There would be no cuts in approved services.

   If further cuts are needed then the services of the forestry department should be outsourced to realize cost savings. We probably couldn’t put that Tree City logo on our signs and since I am trying to save money I suggest we use matching color duct tape to cover the logos rather than buy new signs.

   Non-emergency fire department overtime should be itemized line by line with revenues equal to expenditures. In the event that NIU for example chose to outsource football game monitoring because of cost considerations then we would realize an equitable savings in overtime.

   Hey! Herb you rascal! I just saved the City millions of dollars and I didn’t get $60,000… maybe you could put a word in for me for that $15,000 bonus?

9. Comment by Kay Shelton on November 12, 2008 at 11:06 pm

   Is there a way to re-do, cancel, or somehow get the TIF money back to needs instead of wants?

   Yes, the city should just put forward Mac’s suggestions and pay him a $15,000 finder’s fee. ;-)

10. Comment by Steve Berg on November 12, 2008 at 11:59 pm

    I too, would like to hear Mike Peddle’s take on what is going on with the city’s finances. He is extremely sharp with municipal finance, especially TIF districts. I do not hold out much hope for any workable solutions coming out of this consulting, but I might be wrong. Since the city exists to provide services, and it takes a certain number of skilled people to do that, I do not think that layoffs would be workable. Early retirements as Ed points out, increase the assessments to the IMRF, and that may not save much money in the long run. I suspect that overtime will have to be cut drastically, and salary and wage concessions will be necessary. I doubt that many people in city hall were around when the last bad recession hit in the 1980s. They are probably used to budgeting incrementally, and always in the upward direction. Revenues tended to rise permitting this. Now, revenues are declining, and are going to be doing that for some time. So, they are going to have to cut, and they do not see any easy way to do this. There will be resistance, but they will have to over come that. In the 1980′s, I once took two 10% paycuts back to back. So did management. The production workers had their wages frozen, and worked a 4 day week. Later, the reductions were eliminated, but we were never reimbursed for the reduced pay. It sure beat being unemployed! We kept the company afloat, and the staff largely intact. That company is still in business. So, some tough decisions are going to have to be made, and if the council and administration need to be goaded, and/or protected by a consultant, it might be money well spent.

11. Comment by Herb Rubin on November 13, 2008 at 10:26 am

    thanks mac (and others)

    why not e-mail the suggestions to council (at least those on council who have e-mail)

    tif is always worth examining. just sat through a discussion of dekalb’s tif and the economics is even more complicated than I thought with a large portion of tif revenue already going back to the governmental bodies. Don’t ask me to explain, economics lectures at 7:30 in the morning are a bit much to absorb

    oh, no one mentioned the airport. omission? or is airport okay?

    herb

12. Comment by Herb Rubin on November 13, 2008 at 10:30 am

    Thanks all for the response. hope copies were sent to the council.

    tif is even more complicated than i thought. a lot of the tif money is already being returned to the governmental bodies. don’t ask me for full details. sat through a tif lecture at 7:30 a.,m. and didn’t absorb it all

    no one mentioned the airport. is it okay, untouchable, or just missed.

    herb

13. Comment by Herb Rubin on November 13, 2008 at 11:43 am

    sorry for duplicate.
    machine got into a permanent waiting cycle for site to download and I thought I had lost the site.

    Recently computers 10 Herb 0, unfair game

14. Comment by Anonymous on November 13, 2008 at 11:56 am

    The airport is generally the money pit, the albatross, and the “giant sucking sound” on the east side of the city.

    Thanks Ross Perot, for the immortal quote.

15. Comment by Ed Pevonka on November 13, 2008 at 2:28 pm

    PART II
    UNSTABLE REVENUE SOURCE

    The second major issue the financial consultant will deal with is the unstable revenue sources facing municipal governments. The most stable tax, Property Tax, is under such pressure from the school district that Cities have been forced to turn to other forms of taxes to fund their budgets. The most common are sales taxes, building fees and permits as well as utility fees. As is evident in DeKalb these forms of revenue are directly related to the economy and as the economy falls so does the revenue for the City. The City maintains that in order to prepare for the “down times’ in the economy a healthy reserve fund is needed to carry the city during the bad times of the economy. This is what the city is trying to do now but they are falling terrible short by not looking at the total picture.

    More is needed than just a large reserve fund. The city must move towards stabilizing the expenses. This will also drastically change the way the council approaches the future budgets that they are involved in. As we all know the FY09 budget called for some drastic cuts in services as well as a proposed increase to the general fund reserve. What gets lost in the picture are the capitol expenses that have been pushed to the future in hopes that the economy turns around. Lets use this as an example.

    Lets say that the City A has a fleet of 40 vehicles with an expected useful life of 4 years. Average cost of each vehicle is 25k. That means that every year the city needs to plan to replace one fourth of its fleet at a cost of $250,000.00. FY09 is so bad that the city delays replacing the vehicles for a year in hopes things will be better in the future. This means that City A needs to come up with $500,000.00 in FY 10 to replace its vehicle fleet. But what if times do not improve and they get worse? Do you continue to push these expenses out the to future in “ the hopes you can outrun the expenses”. Many in the private industry have tried to do just that. It usually leads to bankruptcy.

    I use this as an example because it is anticipated that the reserve fund will grow when times get better. In reality if all expenses are pushed to the future times will really never get better we are just trying to push these expenses to the future. Just think of it. The fleet of vehicles is not getting upgraded. The water towers are not getting painted. The police station is not being built all of these and other Capitol projects are put off until times get better. What if times don’t get better and all the cars turn to junk. What if the water tower falls or is condemned before time “get better”. What if someone is injured in an unsafe police facility. It is hard to say but the infrastructure of the city is important and cannot be continually put off into the future and still give employee pay raises at the same time. If times do improve how do you increase the reserve balance when you have delayed all of the capitol improvements that will need to be paid for in future budgets.

    CONCLUSION

    The financial consultant will recommend that the city change its approach to how it develops and monitors its budget. The city seems to presently determine its expenses then search for the revenue to meet these expenses. This method is also referred to letting the expenses drive the budget.

    The method that will be recommended is having the budget drive the expenses. In order to accomplish this all expenses must be identified and stabilized. Revenue sources are set and then it is determined how much can be spent for each item. They can no longer push expenses out to the future in hopes things will get better. The fleet of vehicles is just as important as those that operate them and every item must be given equal consideration.

    The new term you will hear allot of will be “Expense Management” which will be a huge change for the council. The future will bring little or no talk of “new sources” of revenues but will most certainly be centered upon “expenses management”. Employee contributions to benefits, wage and salary freezes, benefit reductions or costs sharing are all items that will receive the future attention of the council. There will be an outcry of no more and no new taxes. This will mean the council must devote their time and effort into expense management and finally having the budget drive the expenses instead of the other way around.

    Part III tomorrow ( the most controversial are the final 2)

16. Comment by Gracie Mott on November 13, 2008 at 4:27 pm

    As we all know the FY09 budget called for some drastic cuts in services

    Ed, I can’t think of ANY cuts in services in the 09 budget. What services were you referring to??

    As far as the vehicles go… several Community Development staff members will tell you in private, that they had 4 EXTRA vehicles that no one even drives anymore even BEFORE they bought the new hybrid vehicle. Who needs to replace vehicles we aren’t even using??? If they actually reduced staff through the use of technology, we would need even fewer vehicles.
    The problem as I see it is… they have been overspending and over hiring … and they want to blindly keep on being able to do so.

17. Comment by Ed Pevonka on November 13, 2008 at 9:15 pm

    Gracie. Thanks for taking the time to read the post and commenting.

    Service cuts:
    Although I am not really in favor of the program there are those that can argue that the elimination of the D.A.R.E. program was a service cut. I would certainly argue that the elimination of the Officer assigned to the DEA major drug task force is a service cut. The pending proposed “intersection only salting” would also be a cut in service.

    Remeber the 1 million projected surplus that is now projected to be under 500k. may be more service cuts on the horizon.

    As far as the vehicles that was an example of capitol investments that are postponed for future years because we cannot afford them yet continue to raise pay and benefits for the employees.

    The same arguement can be used for the technology issues you bring up. Technology advancements are certainly a cornerstone of every advancing business or unit of government but it appears these advances in technology are being postponed for future years while again raising payroll and benefits. So lets add it to an aging fleet of vehicles (IE Police squad cars), water towers in need of repair and the lack of technology advances all occurring at a time when payroll and benefits increase at an alarming rate.

    Stay tuned for PART III that deals exclusively with payroll and benefits

    Peace
    Pevo

18. Comment by Kay Shelton on November 13, 2008 at 10:38 pm

    I am not looking forward to intersection only salting . . .

19. Comment by Kay Shelton on November 13, 2008 at 10:44 pm

    I would rather have good winter road salting and a police officer involved with the DEA than a Taj Mahal parking lot.

    Those TIF projects come with sacrifices; in this case, safety will be sacrificed.

20. Comment by mark charvat on November 14, 2008 at 2:44 am

    Herb – our Mayor and City council lack any backbone whatsoever and are unwilling to make the tough decisions that the private sector facees on a daily basis.

    Mayor “SELECT” Povlsen is more interested in Keeping in his buddies employed rather than facing the stark reality that across the board staffing and budget cuts need to be made in non-essential personnel. (Office staff, IT, Public works, etc…)
    I would say an across the board cut of 30-40 % would do the job. Bring in Part-time help (read: NO Pensions, no benefits, etc)

    Mr Povlsen and this “run amok” council have forgotten one important element in this budget crisis – The taxpayer!

    If Mr Povlsen and Ms Gorski are re-elected in April, they will drive this community into the ground!

21. Comment by anon on November 14, 2008 at 4:03 am

    I would be interested in knowing what percentage of the total city tax revenue is redirected into the TIF funds and compare that to say, Sycamore for example. I have a feeling that we are losing a lot of money to the TIF and then the TIF needs to justify its existence — hence the “streetscape” projects and so on with the onus that it will “someday” help increase real tax revenue. I image it’s all listed in the budget docs but let’s just see if anybody remembers it off hand.

    Re: city staff and the consultant. Seems like it’s in vogue these days to beat up on the people in the city finance department. Let’s just remember that those people are not the ones making the spending decisions; the city council does plenty of that. I am hesitant to place any blame on anyone lower than the city manager since their involvement in this process is limited and they therefore cannot shoulder much responsibility.

    What I’ve been saying for a while is that the city leadership is practically visionless. The city stumbles about from one year to the next hoping that we will not have a deficit. I don’t know whether or not the finance staff can provide a long-term developmental vision for the city or if that is even their purpose. I don’t know if these consultants can either but now they have their shot to do so. They had better not just repackage things we already know!

    Ed: from what you mentioned, that’s cuts in the police (who are already struggling) and the public works’ emergency response. I think the point here is, where are the non-emergency service-related cuts? Is there even much (aside from the unmentionable airport) that can be cut? We need some more specifics here I think.

    Another point is that how we are “ahead” of these other cities is that this crisis started coming up on the radar a year ago and we were able to keep the number of lost positions to a minimum. These other cities in the news have started working on this recently and have in some places had to let go of 50+ employees at a time. It’s not just payroll that is the issue, the pension payments which were discussed here this week also hit them very hard. We’re going to have to absorb a small property tax increase to handle this increase, they are out of options and are losing substantial city services.

    Before you guys jump on this, just keep in mind that you can’t have it both ways. If DeKalb’s property tax rate was set at .65/100 EAV ten years ago instead of just 60, it’s possible that this situation wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it is (I won’t say that it wouldn’t have happened at all since that requires some number crunching I’m not going to do tonight).

22. Comment by Ed Pevonka on November 14, 2008 at 8:51 am

    Anon.
    I respect you thoughts on this issue and it is not my intention to ” jump on this” I am just trying to make some points.

    Paty IV of my posts will involve ” BENCHMARKING” which is another term for follow someone else instead of making your own decisions. You just pointed out all the other cities facing the same problems. Could that be a result of those cities benchmarking against each other instead of running their own cities.

    As far as the property tax increase. I am sure you are correct. If the city would have been taxing at .65/100 for the last ten years instead of .60/100 for the past ten years there would not be a budget shortfall for the pensions. The point I tried to make is that if a portion of the .60/100 collected for the past ten years not been diverted to TIF then there would also not be a funding shortfall. This goes to the council decision over the past ten years fund pensions or fund TIF

    Pevo

23. Comment by Ed Pevonka on November 16, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    PART III
    EMPLOYEE WAGE AND BENEFIT PACKAGES

    The third area the Financial Consultant will address is the wage and benefit packages currently provided to city employees. As I have stated on many prior posts Cities wages and benefits have become way to generous and out of line to what the City can really afford. Things have gotten this way because cities and the unions have only looked at other cities comparable wages when determining what compensation to offer their own employees. This practice is more commonly know as benchmarking ( which will be discussed further in part IV) is the number one reason wages and benefits have grown to where cities can no longer afford these packages. Little attention was given to the labor market in the individual cities but positions were simply grouped together. Using this practice a firefighter should earn the same amount of money no mater what city they live in because they basically do the same work.

    Moving forward it will be recommended that cities pay closer attention to their own cities comparable wages when setting their salary structure rather than following the leader and paying what other cities pay. I offer the following information that was obtained on cities from http://www.city-data.com. I suggest everyone visit this site if you have the time or energy (Cities pay thousands of dollars for this information that is available free)

    The Medium Household income for the state of Illinois is $54,124. So again using the position of firefighter lets see how DeKalb compares to other cities.

    City………….…Medium Household Income ……. Average Firefighter pay
    Bloomington $55,431.00 $63,392.00
    Geneva $89,200.00 $87,700.00
    St Charles $80,100.00 $81,415.00
    DeKalb $42,100.00 $88,600.00
    Rockford $38,689.00 $70,000.00

    When you look at the data on the top three paying cities for firefighters you can see that they are all paying in the 80’s. What you do not see when all you do is compare pay is that two of the three cities also have a average household income of more than double of DeKalb. This is the major reason for the budget difficulties as this community does not have the resources to be one of the highest paying communities in the state.

    CONCLUSION

    In the future much more attention will be placed on the local market when setting salaries. Simply laying off people in the future will not solve the problem. There must be a short and long term plan to get the salaries back in line with the standard of living in DeKalb. Although reductions in wages are unlikely to occur long term wage and benefit freezes are certainly in order.

    Also do not be shocked if the consultants recommend the hiring of additional personnel to oversee the employees in the city. Remember that wages and benefits account for almost 85% of the total operating budget and to have such large expenses without a Department of Personnel may or may not raise the attention of the Consultants. This is not to say the city does not have a very good Human Resource Division but there is a very distinct difference in the administration of benefits and the negotiation of benefits.

    SIDE NOTES
    One department head told me once that the worst thing they would face was a informational picket line put up by the employees during a labor dispute. Can you imagine how effective that picket line would be when a City employee, making over 100k per year, with a nominal contribution for their health insurance who is able to retire at age 50 with a substantial pension would look on this line. How much public support would they really get?

24. Comment by Herb Rubin on November 16, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    Pevo,
    Do you have the data to compare the cities using he medium family income rather than medium household income. Census provides both. . When i did the housing study I found that family and household incomes (two figures that the census bureau gives) are usually pretty close except in places like Dekalb with a large student population. I used the family income rather than the household income as a way of reducing the impact of the student population on the overall figure. It seemed to me (and also to those whom I asked to criticize the report, a better figure to use).

    (a student that is counted in the census but as very little income is part of the calculation for household income but is not part of the calculation for family income)

    Oh, and thanks, for the interesting comparisons.

25. Comment by Ed Pevonka on November 16, 2008 at 6:28 pm

    Herb

    The City-Data web site used data from surveys completed in 2007 to determine the medium household income.

    In order to get the numbers you need one woyld need to go to Wikipedia and this is what they reported for DeKalb

    “The median income for a household in the city was $35,153, and the median income for a family was $53,017. Males had a median income of $36,255 versus $26,422 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,261. About 9.0% of families and 21.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.2% of those under age 18 and 5.4% of those age 65 or over.”

    One reason did not use that data is that is in 9 year old from the 2000 census. Point 2 is why I included Bloomington in my post which is also a university Town ISU and Il Weslyan…

    Also remenebr that when comparing city salries that is only one salary for the hosusehold or the familty which ever you compare them two.

    Much more on this issue in PART IV
    Benchmarking (and why it is of little or no value)

    Pevo

26. Comment by Anonymous on November 16, 2008 at 9:04 pm

    It doesn’t matter how many NIU students are here or how much money they make. Firefighters here shouldn’t make more than ones in St. Charles and Geneva.

    Period.

    When NIU wants to ignore (i.e. screw) its lower paid workers and ignore the high cost of living, HR uses the market excuse to get away with it. Comparing the cost of living here and the paid wages with that of all of the other state universities, what NIU pays is embarrassing. NIU is a drain on the local economy, but not how people think. It has large number of employees getting paid not much more than the warehouse employees. Those NIU nurses are really getting screwed, making the same or lower than the warehouse workers, and their jobs require a bachelor’s degree, with tough classes and expensive books. Low paid employees can’t or shouldn’t go shopping to keep the sales taxes up.

27. Comment by Ed Pevonka on November 16, 2008 at 10:44 pm

    Anon

    Great point. Not many realize there IS A DIFFERANCE in the COLA in every city in the country. In 2008 that National COLA is based on 100. Here are a few Illinois towns Cost of Living index as it relates to the National ratio. It’s all in who’s data you compare yourself to.

    Geneva 111.6%
    DeKalb 101.6%
    Bloomington 81.2%
    Peoria 80.1%
    Rockford 79.2%

    Wonder why the COL is higher in DeKalb than the National Average?

    Pevo

28. Comment by Kay Shelton on November 17, 2008 at 12:19 am

    “Wonder why the COL is higher in DeKalb than the National Average?”

    Because of the property taxes, made extra expensive by the schools?

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