{"id":41372,"date":"2026-10-19T13:11:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=41372"},"modified":"2026-10-19T13:11:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:11:28","slug":"decatur-secures-financial-plan-for-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/19\/decatur-secures-financial-plan-for-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur secures financial plan for future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A deep look into the financial future of the City of Decatur was presented to city council at a recent meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric Walsh of BakerTilly, an accounting firm hired by the city, presented a voluminous, double-sided 70-plus page report to council, looking ahead through at least the next five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In a 25-minute, rapid-fire delivery, Walsh laid out all manner of financial figures, tax information, legislative maneuvers and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Eric Walsh

<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The document is officially labeled the \u201cCity-wide Fiscal Sustainability Plan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BakerTilly, a worldwide company, has \u201chundreds of clients we do these for,\u201d Walsh noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walsh, Mayor Dan Rickord said, \u201chas been working with us for a little while now. We have some projects we want to get done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The plan, Walsh pointed out, \u201cwill show you (the city) where you have been and where you will go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walsh, who at one point said, \u201cYour utilities are in healthy shape,\u201d projected a 3% growth in the city’s assessed valuation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wrapping up, Walsh pointed out, \u201cYou’re in good shape. You have been building out cash reserves over the last few years. Your budgets have been in pretty good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mayor offered up praise for the city’s department heads who, he said, \u201chave put a lot of work in this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have been very cooperative with my group, we appreciate that,\u201d Walsh added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AT STANDSTILL: Earlier this year, Mayor Rickord said at the hiring of BakerTilly, \u201cI think it’s a really good idea to do some financial planning for the future. So I think this can really help us along.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rickord said he and Clerk-Treasurer Eran Hackman have been talking about plans for the future and the uncertainty of finances, \u201cand have found ourselves at a standstill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hackman agreed. \u201cWe have great ideas moving forward, but we don’t know how to make it happen (financially). This will help us determine priorities, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cost of the financial plan \u2013 something the city has not had in the past \u2013 is $60,000, $40,000 of which is in the current budget. The other $20,000 will come from utilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com A deep look into the financial future of the City of Decatur was presented<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":41373,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Read more about what's in the report and how it will be used (and how the city will pay for the report) here: ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-41372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Eric-Walsh-Baker-Tilly.jpg?fit=691%2C797&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41375,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41372\/revisions\/41375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}