DeKalb city manager blasts former city engineer for cost overruns

The DeKalb city manager blamed a former DeKalb city employee for more than $1 million in unexpected costs that will be paid using the city’s savings.

DeKalb City Manager Bill Nicklas blasted then-City Engineer Zac Gill at a recent public meeting, blaming the former employee for several budget amendments that the City Council had to approve.

About $1 million of the overruns were attributed to engineering costs related to Peace Road and Fairview Drive construction and the reconstruction of First Street and Lucinda Avenue bridges.

Another $22,000 was for construction costs for the Annie Glidden Road underpass. Both will be paid for using existing fund balance, meaning money the city has left from surplus revenue in past years.

Nicklas said the city has systems in-house to track costs, but it requires someone to monitor it and alert the city’s finance department.

“We were lacking that, so, we’re paying the price,” Nicklas said. “Everything was spent in the right way. No money was taken, but we were surprised to see bills that came in. We need to pay the bills.”

Nicklas said it is important to be able to track the city’s financial standing for planning purposes.

“One of the things that arises with state-funded projects is there’s often a delay because of the much larger institutional processes at the state level through [the Illinois Department of Transportation],” Nicklas said. “Sometimes it’s six months, nine months, a year before we get all the information we need to know whether we’re under budget, over budget or where are we?”

Gill resigned from his duties at DeKalb City Hall, effective March 28.

In his resignation letter, Gill expressed gratitude to the city for the opportunity.

“It has been a great pleasure to serve the city of DeKalb on its staff as city engineer, and an irreplaceable professional experience in both task and peers,” Gill said.

Gill did not respond to a request for comment.

Nicklas said he was surprised by Gill’s resignation from the city.

He said Gill moved on from the city to take a new job in Lake County and be closer to his family.

“I was [surprised] at the time because we had a full program of work ahead of us,” Nicklas said. “I didn’t expect it.”

The city of DeKalb remains in the process of looking for another engineer.

Nicklas said the city is vested in finding a replacement who brings the skills needed to do the job.

“We want somebody who’s competent to do both design work and also to be able to coordinate field operations, which means they would supervise contractors in the field,” Nicklas said.

Nicklas described the budget amendments approved by the council earlier this month as a housekeeping matter.

He said this is all carryover from resolutions related to street maintenance passed by DeKalb city leaders in the spring.

“There was still some business left,” Nicklas said. “What bills were received in ‘25, it can’t be assigned to the ‘24 budget. So, we have to do something with the ‘25 budget to complete that obligation to pay both engineering costs and also some construction costs.”

During the reconstruction of the First Street and Lucinda Avenue bridge project, Gill previously said he did not expect having to leave taxpayers on the hook for cost overruns from the delays.

Nicklas said he’s not certain what Gill was talking about.

“He’s not here to ask,” he said. “Would there be some path toward reimbursement for the costs that were above our original estimates? There is a path. We still haven’t received word whether we will have an opportunity to recover some of those costs, but right now that’s a matter in the hands of the state government, which is reviewing our request.”