#TeamGSR's Building Power Training Series: City Budget 101

11:01PM Feb 12, 2025

Speakers:

Gabriela Santiago-Romero

Keywords:

City budget

Detroit

Gabriela Santiago-Romero

training series

budget process

revenue

expenditures

public comments

DDOT

housing

participatory budgeting

Office of Violence Prevention

nurse navigation program

community engagement

budget hearings.

Hi everyone. Good afternoon, good evening. Thank you all so much for joining us. My name is Gabriella Santiago Romero. I am your proud District Six city council member here the beautiful city of Detroit's welcoming you to our building power Training Series events for the nights. This was supposed to be in person. So thank you for being flexible as we pivot due to the snow. I hope you're staying warm and you're staying safe tonight. Looking forward to talking about the budget. We use our building power training series trainings and events to increase information and resources, and also to help residents build relationships with one another and organize together to build collective power. Today, again, we're going to be talking about the budget. It's a budget 101, talking about the city budgets and the process, also some tips and tricks on how to engage with it and how to follow along in the process. It's about to begin very shortly. We do this training annually as a way to ensure that we are ready to go right before the budget season starts. It's a perfect time right now to learn about the process. Want to say a huge thank you to LPD, Mr. Corley and Miss Renee shorts for joining us for a third year in the row. Mr. Corley is our money man here in the city. He's an incredible team with with Renee shorts and others who really keep us honest with our budget and support us in understanding what's in it and how we can best advocate for our priorities. Before getting started, some housekeeping and Sophia before getting started in some housekeeping, we want to respect your time. Our goal is to end around 730 to end at 730 we want to respect your time. So we start on time, we end on time. To give you the rest of your evening. In the interest of time, we're going to ask that during the presentation, even now, if you would like use the chats to write down your questions, ideas, concerns, because we can, once we get to the Q and A portion begin to answer those outs and make sure that we get you the information that you need. This meeting is being recorded. It's also currently live on Facebook, if you would like to log in, share it out. Let your your friends and neighbors know about this discussion. Please do so. For the Q, a portion later, for the Q, a portion later, we're going to ask that you please state your name, share your pronouns, what you're wearing and where you are, something that we have been trained to do through the building power training series. So for example, and I completely missed describing myself in the beginning, but I mentioned my name, Garro Santiago Romero, you she her pronouns. I'm currently in our team GSR purple hoodie, and I am tuning in live from my living room floor in front of my fire because it's cold. So I hope you guys are all safe and warm. Thank you to building power training series for best practices on how to introduce ourselves, so that folks that may not be able to see us can still, can still get a description of who we are. If you are on the phone and you want to raise your hand when we get to the Q, and a portion, please, you're going to press pound nine. And if you're on the web with us, you can raise your hand. If you're if you're on Zoom and the Windows computer, you're going to press out y. And if you're on the apple's computer, you're going to press OPTION y. Thanks again. That was our brief housekeeping for today. What we're going to do now is jump right into the presentation regarding our city budget. 101, I'm going to have Mr. Corley with me to really help share any insights, to add, add any contacts. One second, I'm going to have to ask that my dog, she's gone. I had to add some context to to to what I'm sharing, because Mr. Corley has been doing this work for a while now, so he's got got some expertise around the city budget. So with that the mayor's proposed budget. So our fiscal our fiscal year is not a January to December. Fiscal Year is July 1 to june 30. The proposed budget is a plan for what we're going to spend for the next fiscal year. It reflects the mayor's priorities. Hence, it's him that is proposing this budget. The revenues must equal the expenditures per the city charter and per state law, and it's best practice that we write our proposals and our financial plans in four year terms for us to better predict and know what's going to happen financially in the city. Mister poorly, anything that you would like to add regarding this budget? Not on this particular page, but thank you, Council Member. Thank you. We can go to the next slide. Thank you. We're not in person, but usually when we are doing this in person, I often will show our binder, our budget binder. It's about this thick or so. It's a big boy with a lot of information. And this is just an example of what those sheets look like. So you'll see a budget sheets. The Blue the what you see there in the top, these are the expenditures that the city is expending, or the departments. And then in green, you're going to have the revenue, so the money that they have to be able to spend. We can go next, and

Mr. Corley says, anything that you want to add, please do i the city's budget, our revenue is over $2.7 billion and this money is broken. Is the revenue that we receive. You see a breakdown here on the screen. You'll see that the majority of our revenue comes from taxes followed by sales charges of services, followed by grants that we receive, either from state or federal or federal governments, followed by contributions and transfers revenues from other assets, the permitting and licensing fees that you pay, any of the fines or penalties that you that you pay, we've got some one time revenues. This could look like what we used to have. So we had one time expenditures of ARPA money. We had an influx at one points that we were able to use, but it's not it's not a part of our budget. It was something that we were able to use to fund our priorities, and then we've got miscellaneous and then sales of assets, and then just a reminder, we're going to go into this fiscal year with no our no additional ARPA money. We're going to be spending on all that ARPA money. We're really just going to be focused on the city budget. That's what we've got now. It's important for us to know, because during this process, we're always advocating to move money around. But in this moment, we've got what we've got, we're spending down our ARPA money, and we're really looking at our revenue for this fiscal year. Anything on that? Mr. Corley, so

council member, just to add quickly so for citizen to get a little bit more background on these revenues when the mayor presents his budget, there's a session a which gives a great summary of the budget and the numbers. The mayor is going to also give a presentation on February the 28th when he presents his budget, city council at 1230 on Friday the 28th and I encourage citizens to also go online. You can go to the ocfo website. They're going to post the proposed budget as well as the mayor's comments and presentation, and he's going to give a high level summary of his proposed budget. So I encourage folks to read that as well.

Thank you, Mr. Corley, yeah. And really, what today's training is about is just about an overview of the budgets. We don't know the details exactly, because we're not the ones that are proposing it, and looking at those numbers, this is simply for you to get understanding of what the project looks, the budget process looks like, and how to better engage with it. And we will be going over the timeline, as Mr. Corley mentioned, the mayor, we will be presenting his budget soon. We can go to the next slide. So for our fiscal year, the general fund revenue is $1.4 billion the general fund is what we can use, what we can play around with, essentially, again, you can see a breakdown here of where the money is coming from. You'll see, again, majority of this is coming from taxes, and it does not include the funding that we saw that includes grants from other entities. This is also important to note that we have general fund that we can play around with. And then there is correct me, if I'm wrong, sir, quarterly, there is obligated funds. So the rest of the budget is money that's already obligated. We we cannot move that. It's, it's, it's things that we need to pay. So really, the 1.4 7 billion is what we have to reallocate if we if we so choose. So

thank you, Council Member. So just to answer that, so citizens hear a lot about the general fund. General Fund is the major fund that provides the services that most citizens are familiar with, such as police and fire, recreation, grass cutting and administrative offices as well the mayor's office, city council, legislative activities. So you hear a lot about general funds. So thank you.

Thank you, and we're going to get into some of those examples right now. So thank you, Mr. Corley, for getting this in what is in the general funds. So as he mentions, a lot of the departments that provide city services to us are part of the general funds. One of those being BC, the building safety, engineering, environmental departments. Here we see their budgets of over $37 million and their responsibilities are to monitor blight, enforcing a ton of our ordinances that we have, including the rental ordinance and the fugitive dust ordinance. They are the ones that provide permits, and then they're also the ones that are monitoring environmental issues. So they are incredibly important, and this is what they have, and some of the their key responsibilities are. What we'll do is for these next few slides, is give you guys examples, as Mr. Corley said, of what the departments are look like. We can go next, and this is what their budgets look like so and I believe that the city budgets, once it is introduced, people have access to this online, right? Mr. Corley, this is, this is going to live online where folks can access it. Yes,

you go to city choice website, then the office of chief financial officers website. Then you click on Financial Reports, and then you'll get to the budget. And this page here comes from Section B of the budget. And so that's where you see all the nuts and bolts, all the numbers that in appropriations that fall under the individual departments.

And then I will say, for me, when we're looking at this department budget, so you can see for fiscal year 2025, what? What is being adopted, what is being considered. You've got salaries, benefits, operating. I will say, as a council member, we can be more detailed. And I say this every single year to during this budget process, although the the binder is thick, I think we can we we should do a better job about looking at the programming that each department does. So if you follow us along during the budget process, you'll hear me advocate for more details in each department's budget for us to be able to see what they're working on, what they're working on, but that's an aside, and that's a that's an advocacy point that I do every single year during this process. I think it's helpful for us to know, and it'll it'll give us a clear picture of what we're able to move around. But yes, here's an example of what the department's budget will look like. We can go next, following some of some more department profiles. Here we have the water and sewer departments with over $600 million key responsibilities, maintaining water and sewage infrastructure, fixing any of the clogs that we have? I know we have many issues, replacing lead lines and also managing the basement backup protection program for our office. Proud to say that we have responded to over 1000 constituents, concerns and inquiries, a lot of them have to do with flooding, with issues of infrastructure. So it's incredibly important that we continue to to fund departments like our WSD we can go next you.

Oh DPW, also incredibly important. They monitor our waste collections. They do street maintenance and sidewalk repair. They install the speed bumps, the speed cushions that so many people want they do snow removal, traffic control and signs. They would be the department that works closely with us to ensure that we have a truck route and that the truck route ordinance, when it comes is actually being enforced. So again, the departments do incredible work for the city, and here is some of the responsibilities that they have. We can go next GSD, with over 100 million in their budgets, their responsibilities making sure that's the city is clean. They do grounds maintenance, they cut our grass, they board up any vacant properties. They do forestry. So they did the trims, the cuts for any city owned trees. They also maintain our parks and recreation and our animal control. And they also manage fleet and facility. So they do a lot of work. We can go next HRD, some of their key responsibilities are making sure that we are running our home repair programs. They manage the CDBG process. They do our housing services work, and they work with us to push for housing affordability. Here are some other allocations of the funds for our budgets, our DPD departments, with over 400 million, fire departments, 160 7 million. Our health departments, 40 43 million our planning and development departments were at five. And then we've got other entities that are non departmental or their city authorities, like the land bank, receiving at 10 million the and then we also, as a city, provides funding to our Detroit zoom and the Charles Wright museum as well. And there was a note as well that the city does not find our school libraries or our schools or our libraries just Just a note that would come from state funding. So as you can see, we highlighted some of the apartments. We've seen some of their budgets. We've seen what the budget will look like. We've seen what their responsibilities are. Here's an overview of where the money is going and what that looks like. The city is the the mayor's priority, because really this is the mayor's budget. Funding is going to dw, SD, followed by DPD, followed by fire, followed by DPW, GSD, HRD, DHD, and B seed. So this is a good, a good overview to see where the money is going, where it house, and for us to be able to see is DSW, D or DS, dw, SD, is that our priority should? Should these be moved around, whatever the case may be, but this is a good snapshot to see where that funding is going. Anything you want to share on this? Mr. Corley, are we good? Just a

point that for DWSD, they're an enterprise agency. They're they are not a general fund agency. So as you said earlier, Council Member Santiago Romero. Council has more leeway, so to speak, with the general fund agencies, with the enterprise agencies like DWSD. Council, as you said earlier as well, does not have much say so in those departments.

And I'm okay with not if we are replacing lead lines, if we're this is to to Mr. Corley's point. This is where these are mandatory, right? That we maintain infrastructure, that we pay back what we have to pay back. This is why it's it's not going to be under the general fund. We can go next. Here's our timeline. So, as Mr. Cordy mentioned, the mayor will be presenting his budget on Friday, February 28 with City Council beginning our budget hearings on March 12. By March 31 the budget hearings are going to end, and then by April 2, executive session starts. April 7, executive session ends, and then we vote on the budget. April 11, the mayor has the opportunity to veto, if he would like. There has been no veto since the mayor has has been in office. And then if we want to override that veto, we would have to do so by April 15, the city hasn't had to do that yet under Mayor Duggan administration, so let's hope that we can continue to find ways to agree on a budget that works for all of our priorities. I will note that when cities Council budgets hearing starts, time is truncated, and it goes by so fast. So you will see committees go from three to four hours to and one hour long. Every budget hearing will have about an hour where the departments are going to present their budget, their priorities, how they plan to spend their money, and then Council is allowed to ask questions around their presentation. We're able to question if we have concerns. We're able to give suggestions if we have ideas. But this is also the opportunity where you can give public comments. So during the budget hearings, after every single departments, if it's d.if it's DPD, our office every year will also Oh.

Thanks. I think it was the mailman. But every year, Office does share the calendar of each department when they'll be presenting, what time to allow you time to prepare to come, ready to give public comments, and we'll get to that portion in a minute. But once we get to Executive Session, I don't believe there's public comments during Executive Session. Oh, there is after each Mr. Corley, is it after each day? Or it depends, right? Because the chair has been changing up. But there's also opportunity to give public comment during executive session that looks different. Sometimes we do it at the end of the day, sometimes we do it after each session. So tune in to see how public comment goes during the Executive Session, because that really is going to depend on the chair. I think that's it for here, and here's some examples. So what does a budget hearing look like now that we know when it's going to happen, we're going to go into an example of a presentation. First you

if there's sounds we can't hear it,

Chris, you may need to unmute yourself. Perhaps

this worked earlier to just give us a second.

Does that sound i

No, there is not, Nope, okay, let me stop sharing, and I'll start over. Sorry, I guess all good. We did practice this because we wanted to make sure there was sounds I

Can I ask something here now customer so just to let citizens know, we and let's say the policy division, along with the Office of the Auditor General, provides a report on the budget hearings. We try to provide that report a couple of days in advance of the budget hearing. We post that on our website, and then it goes on a a smart sheet, and the Office, Office of CFO. So if you want to see our reporting questions on the various budget hearings, you should go to the CFO and you'll see, I think it's under the Office of Budget, yes, Office of budgets link, and then you'll find the smart sheet where our reports are posted.

Thank you, Mr. Corley, and just so that everybody else knows we as a council, we review though, then we use those for our questions as well. And LPD also submits their own questions, and they're always very good. So those are very good reports to review. Okay,

I think we're going to try one more time.

And as that is pulled up and

well, that's being pulled up. I'm gonna make my way backwards. Oh, Trish, I see you have joined us again. Still working out the key or council member. Okay, no worries. I'll start to go through the questions in the chat while we have them making my way backwards. Will this presentation be accessible? If so, yes, it's being recorded, and we share all of our information via the newsletter. So if you haven't already signed up for the newsletter, so if you wouldn't mind dropping that link in the chats, so folks can sign up while they're with us. Thank you, TJ for sharing the information that Mr. Corley is referencing folks who may not be on the chat right now. The Link was shared there, where you can find the doc, the documents regarding the budget process. There are DDOT questions. Do you have a citation classifying DDOT as an enterprise department? Mr. Corley,

so when you look at the Yes, so when you look at the budget and Section Eight overview, they show the departments that fall under general fund and they promised under in the fires agency, so you would see that so for this year, if you went to page 834, you will see that breakdown.

Thank you. A follow up question is, how do we find out how much she has underspent in any given year? I don't know if they've ever underspents, but Mr. Corley,

you have to go to the city's annual comprehension financial report to look at that. Those reports are also posted on the CFO website. But to see actual data, you have to go to the annual financial statements for the city, and

then let me know what you mean by underspent. I may not be understanding that, because I know that they could be funded more, but when I read underspent, I understand it as people leaving money at the table, which I don't believe is the case. We are the money that we have. We're spending it. We're usually we're utilizing it. So please correct me if I'm wrong, if I'm misunderstanding that question, how do we find the city's contribution to DDOT? Mr. COVID just mentioned that, and then the link again, was just shared. Thank you, TJ for sharing that the link. And then how do we find the bus fare estimate for the year? Can't find that one either.

So the bus fear that's not broken out. I don't think Ms Jordan can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that's broken out in the proposed budget, per se.

If the information, I think that's something that we have to ask again. This is one of those. It was there. We know it, but we have to ask. Ms short,

thank you, Councilwoman. It's not a budget item, but it should be on the website, in their published fees. And when I say not a budget item, it would not be like a line item, and I don't think it's part of their introduction or narrative about the department, so I don't Think they specify it anywhere in the budget document.

Agree. Those are questions that we can ask. So a part of Mr. Corey mentioned that they submit reports, and then we have, during the budget hearings, time to ask questions. We also don't have that much time, so we own we usually only get one or two, three questions at max. So a lot of the questions are follow up questions that are sent via memo directly to departments. So that's the kind of question that we can ask via memo.

To do, to do. I'm gonna make my way down again. If you have questions, please do put them on the chat. Council

member, yes, sorry to interrupt. We are going to Joe well is going to attempt to share his screen to do this public comment or hearing and public comment example. So let's give it a try. You

Yeah, we're not hearing. Unfortunately, I don't I don't understand because, yes, we did trial all of this right before we started this this evening. So what we can do, Council Member, if you are okay with this, since we're having the IT issues and apologies, folks, we can drop the link to this budget hearing in the chat and then put the two time frames for where the director for housing revitalization, Director Snyder speaks, so you can get a sense for how she introduces it. And then another time, 240 Oh, wait, we just heard a Joel, whatever you did.

Good morning to this honorable body. So I am honored to be able to present the work of the housing and revitalization department.

It stopped. Joe, well, if you whatever you may have just changed, we'll drop the link in the chat out of we don't want to take up too much time trying to get this so like I said, we'll drop the link in the chat with two times stamps for folks to look into these good examples.

Can we try it one more time? We're doing good on time, and this is, this is, this is really a good piece of the training as people seeing what the budget, hearing looks like, and then seeing the questions. If we can try it one more time, because we did, we could hear it.

Councilwoman, as I remember, we did share screen and share audio, clicking those, those two areas,

apparently invest funds and deliver services to ensure that housing and neighborhoods are high quality, affordable. Funds department, we are together about 240 people strong, and our work each day is to soundly and transparently invest funds and deliver services to ensure that housing and neighborhoods are high quality, affordable and accessible to and for all Detroiters. I open with the mission because I want to make sure that to provide an introduction to the department, to those of us, to those that might be viewing that aren't familiar, but also emphasize what drives our work each day. So we are made up of five depart five divisions within the department, three are programmatic, meaning they are delivering programs and services such as development investment. They invest in affordable housing. They invest in public facilities, housing stability services, preventing having tenant navigation services, and this division also administers homelessness services, as well as a number of other housing stability programs, Home Repair and Neighborhood Services.

Thank you. So we could hear that. And that was an example. So what who you heard was director Schneider from HRD, giving the introduction, talking about our staff, and talking about, you know, what the work is that HRD does. So that's a little bit of the introduction of the hearing we are going to now try to do to show the portion now of the questions, member Johnson, my questions are around the down payment assistance program and the CDBG basement backup protection program. When it comes to the down payment assistance program, are there any thoughts around how to sustain that once this pot of money has run through,

through the chair to council members Santiago Romero? So yes, it's, I mean, the word thrilled with the success of the program, as I mentioned yesterday, it it not only it, it went above and beyond our expectations in terms of how quickly people were accessing the funds. And so it was really, really great to see such a success in a program. So it's certainly something we would like to consider. So we are launching this year with some additional ARPA funds are looking to to raise money from private, philanthropic sources as well, and in the long term, it can be funded with community development block grant dollars. Of course, our funding is is, is limited, and we have other priorities, so I don't know that it will be funded at the at the level that we've been able to fund it through ARPA and the one time grants, but I but it is a program that we would like to to consider. And of course, we will that program will be available and kind of size based on what the market needs are. That includes the amount of the down payment assistance, what it can be, what it can be used for, etc. But I I believe it's a program that I would absolutely like to consider in the future

through the chair wonderful, happy to hear and happy to think through how we can make sure to provide the funds needed to sustain the program. The other question I have is regarding basement backup protection. There was one round that was successful that had less stringent eligibility and qualifications because it was not CDBG funding. This round, we're using funds through CDBG. It has limited the access for residents wondering, are we also considering another basement backup protection program, not utilizing CDBG to allow more residents access to that service or those resources

through the chair? That's that's a great question. The original basement backup protection wasn't, wasn't funded out of HRD. I can certainly bring that, that question back and provide an answer, a follow up answer on that particular question

through the Chair. Thank you, Director, thanks team. Apologies for not being able to share the visuals. It's just us sitting at tables, but I think seeing what the process looks like, hearing what the process looks like in real time, is important. And thank you, team for sharing. There's a link in the chat and the times of when to what times to to go to and play so that you're able to see the presentation and able to to hear the questions as well. So that was some examples of an example of what a public hearing looks like, a budget hearing looks like, and then our ability to then answer to ask any questions, also noting if you have questions specifically for any departments, let us know, because we can then either ask at the table or via memo. And all this information again will be online, so you'll be able to follow along through eastcribe, the memos that we share out the replies from each department. So this is another way that our office can help advocate and get information to residents. So please let us know. Ask, reach out, and then I can ask the questions at the table, or we can send out a memo as well, how to view and participate during the budget hearings. Again, the budget will be if you want to learn more information regarding the budget, you can go to Detroit mi.gov forward slash budget. Once we begin the hearings, you can join via zoom. You can do so by going to Detroit mi.gov for slash, online, dash, CC, dash meeting, and then the same rules apply for how to engage with that you're going to be on the phone, or if you're going to be online. You can also follow along and watch on Channel 10. There are closed captioning as well, and you can also watch again on the city websites. So all of the times we're going to share what we know of the apartments and when they're when their hearings are going to be. Note that the times might change. Things happen. Sometimes apartments may need to change their hearing. So be on the lookout for any changes that might happen, because that is something that does happen. And then encourage if you want to make public comments during these hearings, that you raise your hands as soon as you as soon as you enter the room, or make sure that you raise your hands when there is notice for public comments. We can go to the next slide a little bit about some of the work that we've been doing. So last year we were able to reallocate $2.6 million we did more of that. We did more than that our first year, but for last year, we put $1 million into expanding our shelter services and operations. We deeply understand the need to have housing, to have shelter. So this is something that we find incredibly important. So we invested that money last year, 900,000 for Fourth Street Bridge Park. We had residents in four, two and seven let us know that they wanted some funding to to to fill a gap. So we we advocated to help fund their their park fire departments. We were able to allocate $600,000 to launch our nurse navigation program. This program is going to be so helpful. We're really excited. It's about to the contract is about to come through my committee, I chair public health and safety. I've been told by fire that it's going to be incredibly helpful. This will embed a nurse into our 911, system to help residents navigate the health care system to help folks understand their options. Many times we will go to an emergency room when we when we might just need something preventative. So we'll have people embedded in our in our 911 system, helping people navigate and make the best choice for themselves. We also put 164,000 into the embedments office so that they hire two more community staff. We hear often of the important work that they do throughout the city, so we supported them with additional staff. This year, we're going to be asking for a lot so this year, and what I've learned in my short time on council, it's just ask. Ask go big, ask for the things that we'll be hearing from residents and then, and then we negotiate. Also want to highlight that a lot of the asks that I have this year for the city are city wide, so hoping to get supports from the rest of my colleagues as well. But d dot heard we understand the need to invest more money into the system, so we will be asking for an additional 36 million. We hear about the CVI program and the the danger that it's in and not being funded. There were supposed to be some funds coming in through the states. That did not happen. We're hoping that that's is something that happens this time around, but we're looking to continue the CVI work. This is something that I organized really closely with community, who wanted to ensure that if the city is going to invest in technology, that we also invest in community and interventions. And I think the CVI work has been incredibly successful, and a huge part of the success in the city addressing addressing crime, we always, we always advocate to invest money into affordable housing and to sidewalk repairs. This year, we're going to be asking for 3 million for each 2.5 million for merit Park projects in 4204 this is to to close the gap that they have to build their new facility. This is a beautiful facility that is going to support youth programming. And we can share more about their about their projects. I can talk more about it during the budget process, or we can even share out more through our newsletter. But they reached out asking for help. They they work with students from a young age all the way through college, through mentorships and and programming. So excited about their work over in 4204, 1 million for Eden Park and four, two and seven. I we know the need for more recreational space and outdoor space in 4217, so hoping to support them in their efforts, and then 1 million for participatory budgeting. I have been talking about this since my since the very first year that I started on council, talking about, what if we instead of doing trainings like these, instead of having the administration say, where do you want your money to go to, and only giving you three options, what if we set aside money and residents get to directly say where that funding goes to? So we've been talking about this for a while now, and I think the $1 million is a good start. It is not enough, but it's a start for us to see, for us to pilot this. This this potential resource for residents. So we're going to be asking for 1 million to start, and we'll see, we'll see where that takes us. But again, while we're going to be asking for all of this, there's going to be negotiations. There was some some comments about D dot, and just some notes around D dot. I have met with the new director, and while there was a note about the leaving money at the table, I he tells me that it's not about leaving money on the table, it's about making sure that they're ready to spend it down. So we just passed a resolution through city council that we fully fund and implement the DDOT reimagined program. So we're going to keep we're going to keep funding. We're going to keep pushing that they have more resources so that they're able to utilize it by hiring more staff, gaining the training that they need. But it's something that we have to, we have to do in hand, in hand, anything you want to share on this, Mr. Corley or on the process of council asking for for allocations,

Council Member. So typically, when a particular agency is doing their budget, hearing a council member. So in this case, for DDOT, as an example, Council Member of Santa Romero, after the director speaks, and when Council has an opportunity to answer your questions, she would ask to put, say, the $36 million in Executive Session. And as we indicated earlier in the timeline, executive session starts April the second. So what happens is that all these various items that relate to whatever agency doing, that agency's budget hearing, council members, Santa Romero and other council members that have items that want to go into Executive Session would do so during a budget hearing. And then council takes, you know, time during the second session to, you know, review their changes to the budget and try to come up with the funding for it, just to let the citizens know, Castle cannot touch the revenues that are set those revenues that were voted on by the revenue Conference Board this past Monday. Those are the revenues that Mayor Duggan is going to include his proposed budget. Council cannot touch those revenues, so if council wants to fund a particular change to the budget to reflect their priorities, they have to cut funding in another appropriation. So that's where it gets to be challenging. I would say that generally, when the mayor is proposing one time items that are normally supported by whatever general fund surplus that the general fund ends up with. Those are usually easy to for council to look at to change if council wants to add an item that relates to more say, for instance, more staffing that's a recurring expenditure, which means that over the four year financial plan that also the mayor is going to present, that spending will have to be available doing that four year plan to to be able to cut if council wants To fund positions elsewhere. So just want to mention that also, just want to remind the citizens that during the budget hearing process, the committee meetings are going on just for an hour so, and then also the morning committee meetings, and as membero indicated she's the chair of the public health and safety committee, that committee will start at 9am um, during the budget process, and there would not be Dangerous building hearings as well during the budget process. And, yeah, I think that's it for now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Corey, that's incredibly important to mention how this all works and the difference between the hearing and the Executive Session, because that's exactly it. During budget hearings, we get to ask the questions and move things to Executive Session, and that's where deliberation happens, and that's where we get down to figuring out where we can move things around. This is often the time where we have to make compromises. This is also an opportunity where, say, we're not able to put money into a priority that a council member has, we are able to put it into the closing resolution. And this is a document that Ms shorts actually has been doing a really great work job keeping track of so closing resolution, what it looks like is all the things that we did not get funded. So say this year, for some reason, we don't all agree that we should continue to fund community violence interventions programs. I would put that in my closing resolution that we fund it next year. There this is where negotiation happens, where planning happens, where we get to see, you know, how much can we actually get done and how much can we commit to now and later? So all of this is really important when it comes to advocating. So thank you, Mr. Coley, I appreciate that we can go next, and we're getting up on time. We're about to go into questions, folks, oh, I guess the resolutions from last year. I do want to talk more about the resolutions briefly, because there's a question about that. So these documents, how they work is, once we do our final closing resolution, Miss short will go to BFA. I'm a committee member of our budget, Finance and Audit Committee, and she'll come periodically to let us know if the because sometimes on the closing resolution, it's not necessarily a budget item, maybe it's us asking that the administration commits to setting up a program with the funding that they already have. It can look like working together to help us establish an office in the future. You know, I am pushing for an Office of Violence Prevention. I have since, since, since we've started, and we haven't been able to fund that. So that's something that I might be able to put in the closing resolution to say, hey, administration, with the funding that you have in the staff that we have to begin to plan to establish an Office of Violence Prevention in the future, that's not all just promises about what we're going to fund in the future. A lot of it is also around what we're going to commit to if we're not able to fund your priorities now, how are we going to work closer to that goal? MS, short, anything that you want to share on that, and then what she does is she, she updates us as a council on where the administration is on on these promises.

Thank you. So when we solicit the departments on where we are with the closing resolutions. We're asking them basically the status, is it open and in progress? Or did you not consider the item? Have you completed it? Or is there more work to do more consideration on that item? And they give us their feedback as to where they are in in the process. Normally, if items deal with hiring folks or something like that, that's in, in the budget appropriation, those things actually kind of take place. So if it's for asking for studies or something like that, that may take a little more time, and if they have to work with outside entities, that may take a little more time, and so it remains in progress a little longer, and may cross fiscal year. So those are the kind of the type of information that we're looking for. Are you actively working on? What is in the closing resolution, if this feasible, and if not, tell us why.

Thank you. Ms short, some ideas on how to advocate with us during the budget process. So if you are interested in pushing forward a budget solution, we encourage you to get together with your neighbors. And if it's like some of our neighborhoods looking to help us fund with parks, let us know. Right get together. Send it to proposal, identify that need, and then make a public comment during that department's hearing. You can also, we encourage you to organize yourself before hands. Maybe you want to have a petition, maybe you want to have a letter of support, but you want to send this letter, this petition, to Council, to the administration, to your district manager, to the mayor's office, so that we all know, and we're all that we're all aware of what your asks Are we encourage, if you feel strongly about the Office of Violence Prevention, help organize with us. Write an op ed, organize residents in your neighborhood to help push I will say I am more successful when residents are calling and pushing and asking for something because, because then it doesn't become, oh, this is just Gabby's idea. Like, Oh, just Gabby wants to do this world radical Office of Violence Prevention thing. No, it's a very common thing. Many cities already have it. Residents want it. So having residents do this work with us is incredibly important. And you're also able to email your office budget at any time. And you can do so by emailing your budget@detroitmi.gov and have some public comment tips. Be prepared to probably only speak for a minute. Most for the for the most parts, our residents get two minutes during public comments, but because everything is truncated during the budget process, you most likely only have a minute. So be prepared. Write your remarks in advance. Practice time yourself. We make a note that you have only 60 seconds probably. So no need to say thank you. Councilwoman waters, Councilwoman Santiago Muriel, that's 30 seconds of your time. And if there's something that bothers you, like, Oh, and by the way, this is not enough time. We know it's not enough time. We're very sorry. Utilize your time well, and it's incredibly helpful to do that. Be specific about what you're asking, what you support, what you don't support, and know that not everyone on city council may know what the issue is in your neighborhood or that you're dealing with. So try to provide some context. I would spend 2030 seconds on the context and the other 2030 seconds on the asks. And that might not sound like a lot of time, but if you look at some recordings, I have had some very successful one minute public comments. They succ they deliver the message. It does take practice, so I will tell you that because it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a thing that you have to, you have to get good at avoid repeating what things have already been said. If you want to add more contacts, use the time to add more points. You can always say like, ditto to what the other caller said. I agree with the last three callers, but then you want to use your time wisely and add a little bit more. I completely believe that you get more done with with honey. So be polite, be professional, be respectful. Believe it or not, many of us on council really love and care about our city, and we work really hard, and the budget process is long, it's draining, it's exhausting. So letting us know what you want to work on and working with us can go a long way. We can go to the next slide, which is the last slide, folks. So I see some questions now and then I'm going to invite Ms short to join us. What we'll do now is going to our Q and A portion, and actually what I'm going to do is team, if you wouldn't mind, asking some of the questions that I might have missed. I need to run to get my charger, and I'm going to turn it over to LPD to help me answer these questions, but I'll be right back. You.

For sure. So I think first on stack we had Bernard who had a question. So I'll go ahead and I'll ask Bernard to unmute,

looking for you in the participant lineup right now.

Actually, no longer see.

Yep, I am yeah. Thank you. You were able to give me the unmute. I'm a resident of District Six in Detroit, the question I had is really just concerned about the federal funding and these cuts coming from Yeah, has the city council, like, deliberated or considered that there may be some sort of emergency budget, or Some sort of budget with alterations. I know in your presentation, there was something about grants and transfers. Will there be any changes with that? And of course, you know, I really support Double D dot, and I think your support for the resolution and for DDOT reimagined as well, so I don't have to go any further into that. Thank you. Thank

you. Mr. Corley, you served under the last presidential, Trump presidency, because this is something to answer. The question, yes, we are scared. And the important question, are we prepared? And what does that look like? I have not had to serve under these kind of conditions. Mr. Corley, what does that look like if we do lose federal funding?

Fortunately, under President Trump's first term, he did not impose a lot of major cuts in federal funding. And what happens that COVID stepped in, and so he had to come up with extra money to help with the COVID, you know, process this time around, there is some, you know, signals, and unfortunately, some negative signals coming, you know, as we all know, from President Trump, in terms of federal funding, If there's some major reductions in federal funding, the mayor will have to come back to city council to budget amendment. So let's say you passed the budget on April the seventh. At that time, President Trump, hopefully has not made any major reductions in federal funding, but if he does so after April 7, and when the budget starts July one, as you said, the fiscal year, July one to june 30, and there's a major hits on the budget then, yeah, the mayor will have to come back to the council with a budget committee.

Thank you, Mr. Corley, thank you for that question. What I'll do now team is I will go through the questions that I missed the first time. The question the next question that I have here are, are there options to see how much each department is located for share resources? For example, the city police departments has their own social media channels. Is that personnel shared across departments, or do they have their own? This depends. So sometimes the each department will have their own, or sometimes, I know for us in our office, we do share the photographers, the videographers, if we need support with with making a video. We do utilize the administration supports, but some departments do have their own, I believe, and I this is one of those questions that we would have to ask, I think, in a memo to get a better understanding. This is one of the advocacy that I say, I want to know what you're spending on, because we don't know, but that's my insights. Miss short mister Corley, what do you guys think on this one?

Yeah, so if you have suggestions like that, or from your constituents, the fact that we're we're getting the budget on February the 28th gives Council another week, you know, extra week, basically, to review the budget So the earlier you can get questions like that to the administration, so that they can get them before the budget hearings, the better, and that way they can address what their thoughts are of our shared services as an

example.

The next comment here is around the recent tragic loss that we experienced here in the city, and the need for better responsiveness. So wholeheartedly agree, and this is part of the issue when it comes to our budget and the resources that we have. So I know when it comes to the house the housing hotline. I'm a social worker, and I have friends that are social workers that have complaints about waiting for an hour for them to get through to somebody on the line to help them navigate the housing system. But yes, this is something that we can advocate for more funding now that we know that this is an issue, asking for us to to to fund it better. I know that the mayor is looking into this, to see what the issue is, looking to see what what the results are, because if it's a staffing issue, if it's more funding that we need, that's something that we can discuss during this process. So thank you for highlighting that. Yes, we're all we are able to add more, if you would like my council member. Yes. Sorry to interrupt. We had a question from Patty higher up at the top, around DDOT. Okay. It is asking, Do you have a citation classifying data as an enterprise department? And then she has some other ones. How do we find out how much did that has under spent in our given year? How do we find the city's contribution to DDOT? I often can't find it. And how do we find the bus fare estimate for a year? Can't think of it. Yeah, no. Those questions we answered earlier, Mr. Corley mentioned that. Mr. Corley, sorry, what did you say again regarding the first

So, regarding the citation about DDOT being an enterprise agency, you will see that in the first section of the budget. You should also see that in in the city charter, as well as as a city code with respect to the fair of DDOT, you would not see that as a as a separate item in the proposed budget. But I just remember, at the end of the annual financial statement, there are statistics, and those statistics towards the back of that document, they do show the fares over the last, you know, so many years. So you can see, in fact, I really encourage citizens to look at the statistics that are at the end of the annual financial statement. It gives a boatload of information about individual items like fares and the number of riders on DDoS, on and so forth.

Thank you, Mr. Corley, and that information on how to get the that information was linked in the chat as well. I see some hands raised. I'll ask this one question out loud, and then team, if you wouldn't mind helping me move our panelists over to speak the question here, one of the questions is, when you say what we are asking for this year, do you mean counsel yourself? This is me. This is we, our office, the Office of GSR, team. GSR. So when I say we, it's my team, and this presentation is on what we're going to be advocating for this year. So thanks for that question, team. Who do we have first? Yep,

come next. We got Mr. Cunningham.

Hello for the resolution. Thank you for doing that so and thanks to Reverend Corley for being so energetic. So I'm curious, the double D dot the 100 50 million from the general fund. That's, that's a huge ask. So where aren't they at 80 million from last year, and you're asking for 34 million. So that's, what's the math on that? That's like 115 million, or it would,

it would take it over the 100 and it would take it over to 100 million. Yes, and we So to your question about So, I think, I guess, Mr. Cunningham, what is your question? Because we have mentioned before, so it is a big bump. I guess you're asking if that's possible. Yeah,

$150 million is quite a lot, but that's what advocates are asking for from the general fund. So you're getting it close, you're requesting it closer to that goal. And I thank you for that, but the 150 it may be a long shot, huh? Maybe I,

we're gonna ask, we're gonna keep moving. I it's a it's a jump from where we are now. Yes, and as I mentioned earlier, after talking with the director, it's about making sure that we give them what they can spend down and and making sure that they're ready to do so. But I also understand that they need more resources to be able to provide better service. So it's definitely an and, or we need both, but we every single year, we it's about advocating and adding so that we get to that number. So we'll be asking for 36 hoping to add more next year so that we're able to get closer to that number. And

I just want to thank you, and I want you all to know. Mr. Corley team. GSR, you treat everybody so kindly and nicely and respectfully out of all the council persons, and you're truly in my prayers always, and my mom's too when I visit a nursing home. So we love you. Thank

you so much. Mr. Cunningham, I love you. I love the city deeply. It's an honor. Truly. I will take it to my team to help me find the next person to speak.

Yep, I looks like we got Lou and Anderson up next.

Yes, hello, hello, hey, I don't have say a question set. I just would like to ask, um, you guys are doing a good job. Um, clarity is key. Like, one of my comments stated, I will be looking into you guys, uh, furthermore, and trying to do what I can, you know, as far as the blight and things are happening around on the ground over here, appreciate you guys. That's all I want to say.

Appreciate you. We will thank you, especially with comments like those, man, we'll take them. Thank you so much

team. Who do we have next and next up we have Patty fadewa. Sorry about that pronunciation, if that's incorrect.

Hi Councilwoman. Thank you so much for having this event, and thanks for answering my questions. My big thing about I keep bringing up out the enterprise department, it just seems to be something we've invented. I can't find it in the charter. I can't find it. So when I asked for a citation, I'm literally looking for point and verse, what law or what it comes from, seems to be what I consider a bad tradition, because what it does is it doesn't allow people to give as much input into it, and it's into the budget process. Because enterprise departments, you know, even like when you have your October meetings, people don't get to choose among them. It's it just becomes a different issue. And as such, I just really would like to change that. And and ddo, for the last few years, according to the budget Department, has not spent all its funds because it couldn't hire enough people, so it leaves money in the table all the time. And I'd like to get a handle on that and be able to follow that, but at the same time, thank you so much for the resolution, and just thanks for fighting for transit. Thank you.

Of course, these are good questions, and I heard got that, and that does make sense again, the two, it's got to be both. We got to make sure we pay our bus drivers better so that they're able to take these jobs, right? So, yes, heard definitely, Mr. COVID. Would you happen to know about the first question about it this in the charter, is this just the best practice for the budget process itself, from my understanding, enterprise or obligated, is just it is that it's funding that we use for. In my mind, it's the major infrastructure, is the thing that we have to spend down the things that's important for us to run our city. But is that a best practice? Is that, by the charter, is that how we do budgeting? In my mind, it's how we do budgeting, but I don't know, and I'm learning it's my first term, you know, jumping in, but that's a great question. Is this a best practice, or is this part of the charter?

I think in most cities, the transportation is funded by a dedicated revenue source, so like, you know, sales tax, some type of, you know, transit tax, that doesn't happen here in the city, Detroit. So typically, in most cities, there's either a special authority that handles transportation, or, again, there's a dedicated revenue. We do not have a dedicated revenue for DDOT other than fairs. We do get some monies from the state through like a state revenue sharing formula, but it's not a whole lot. And so what happens is that we have to the general fund has to contribute a lot of money to DDOT. And hopefully at some point we can get to the point where DDOT can become a part of a regional system, more of a regional system, so that it could be more of a dedicated revenue source for DDOT. That's, you know, I know, Mayor, I'm sorry. Governor Whitmer has signed some legislation that basically says Oakland County and Wayne County cannot opt out of funding for regional transit system, but has to go to the voters, so the voters agree to a regional tax, then that should hopefully substantially reduce the general fund subsidy that.

Thank you, Mr. Corley, yes, of course, this makes complete sense. I think it's similar. Actually. I don't know if it's similar in New York, but I feel like they also have their own their own transit authority. They do Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. That makes complete sense. We have a few more questions here, and if you have any questions do, please put them in the chat, or you can raise your hands. We've talked about D dots. Land Bank is not fully funded by the city. But do we provide a budget for them? We do. We do provide a budget for the land bank. One thing that we are would like to see is Mr. Corley, while we spend money on the land bank, they keep the money that they make correct. That

is correct. So, so sales of city owned property that they sell to the side lot program, the home and ready, I think it's called program. They do keep those revenues, but the majority of money comes from the city, and you will find contributions to various organizations and the non departmental budget, and that kind of gets a little lost, because most people, you know, they relate to police, fires, on and so forth. Non department turns out to be a major budget, because that's where all the major revenues from, the taxes, you know, income tax revenue, property tax revenue, wage earning, tax revenue, flows to non departmental. And then also any contributions that we make, the DDOT contribution, the contribution to the African American Museum, Historical Museum, all this, Detroit zoo, all that's in non departmental. And that's another one that citizens hopefully can take a take a closer look at. And I just want to quickly remind us, the citizens, that just like all committee meetings, they're archived. All of the meetings, all the budget hearing meetings, all of the second session meetings will be archived. So if you happen to miss one, you can go back, going to the city council, city Detroit website, going to city council, and there will be a link to the archive meetings.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Corley, and I will see the non departmental, as was mentioned. We don't think about but I have supported funding the zoo, the child, right? Museum. You know, these are things that we don't think about, but that we love and utilize. Um, so it's, it is good to make sure that we're following along with that as well.

Two to two. I

I believe we've gone through, oh, Joel, were you saying

something looks like it was around Korea.

Sorry, that was a mistake.

Oh, no worries. All right, everyone. I'm going through the questions on the chats, I believe we've gone through all of them to do to there are also some comments here, people like the idea of an Office of Violence Prevention. Wonderful. Will just mention, if folks don't know what this is, so across this country, there is a movement to open and establish Office of Violence preventions that are places that provide research grant funding for different programs. An example here would be a CVI program, recommendations on some best practices, solutions, programs. And I find, I have found there's a really wonderful Office of Violence Prevention, I believe, in DC, where they not just provide grants to organizations that are working to address violence, but they have themselves their own mentorship programs, where they have folks that are returning citizens, leading programs working with youth, really, really beautiful things, where, I think the city here, we can be creative with it, and we already doing CVI work. So glad that folks are interested in that our office will be pushing to establish an Office of Violence Prevention this year. There's a lot of things to try to get done this year as our last year promised. So we're trying to do all that we can. And if we get to come back and something that we're not able to get done this year, we will be pushing for it for next year. Team. Please let me know if there is Oh, and then folks are interested in nurse navigation program? Yes. And part of some of the work that I do is the public health and safety chair is, is look deeply into how we're addressing crime, how we're addressing mental health. And one thing that we're doing is pushing for the office of veterans prevention so that we are able to work regionally as well, so it'll help us grow capacity to be able to work with our partners, to be addressing the issues that we have. All right, at this point, I don't know what I wrote and what I haven't read. If I missed something, please let me know if you're if you if I missed a question, please put it in the chats for me to see again. But if not, what I'll do now is go into some of our Oh, a quick evaluation form. That's it for us, folks, our presentation. Thank you for the questions, thank you for the comments. Really appreciate them. What you'll see now on your screen is a quick survey, quick evaluation. I think it's incredibly important that we know how we're doing and how we can be better. So if you wouldn't mind just answering these brief questions, how you heard about the events, and then how would you rate the events? It's again, we want to make sure that we do good work for you. And while I have you here some background on me, Joel and I actually went to U of M School of Social Work for our master's program, and we both really focused on systems evaluation and data collection. So you'll see that our office is constantly evaluating. That's how we collect the data. It's how we're able to input it to be better. So thanks everyone. So far, yes, the newsletter is doing well, good job. TJ, please let us know how we can be better, because we believe in our office that our residents deserve excellence, so we really want to make sure that we do the best that we can. You don't see the survey? Anita, Oh, no. The two questions are, how did you hear about the event? Sometimes that happens on Zoom, so if you want to put that on the chat for us. And the second question is, how would you rate this from a 12345, from one to five, one being four, five being excellent. Please let us know. Great, awesome. So folks that may not be able to see the survey again, the question is, the first ones, how did you hear about the events, and then what you would rate it? Thank you so much for answering those questions with us. Really, really appreciate it. We've got 64% of the folks that replied. That's incredible. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that. What we'll do now is share with folks some up, some updates, or some updates, some upcoming events that we've got going on. So next we're ready for some fun. We are going to have our second annual d6 skate nights at roller cave. It's going to be Thursday, February 20, six to 8pm think good weather, good thoughts. And we invite the first 250 people that join us. Enter for free. Go get food or get a pop, and you get to have some fun with us. We are going to have another know your rights training. This is going to be virtual on Tuesday, February 25 from six to 730 we had our first know your rights training on january 15, and we want to make sure that anyone that might need some more training can do so at this training team. Please correct me or share all the languages that we're going to have available. So if you speak Spanish Arabic, Wolof, we are going to have those languages available. I believe. Trish, can you correct me if I'm wrong? Sorry, Heather, you you were not wrong, and we are also gonna have options for French and Arabic. Thank you. Our next coffee hour is going to be at the St Patrick's Senior Center. We love the St Patrick's Senior Center. There's so much fun. It's going to be on Thursday, March 6, from 1030 to 1130 there is coffee, there is goodies. Please join us. We will have our next office, our community office hours on Monday, February 17, from three to 5pm at bridging communities, and then on Monday, February 24 from four to 6pm at Kennedy rec center. This is an opportunity for you to meet with my community team, my wonderful team, to see if you have any questions. We will also be joined by the review board. So if you have any questions for the Board of Review, please join us to speak with them again. Our newsletter. If you haven't signed up for it, please do. It's hard to be able to keep up with all the work that we're doing and the events and as always, our phone, email, social media information is here in the bottom. We hope that you're able to connect with us. That is it for us. We hope that you have a good evening. Stay warm, stay safe. Thank you so much. Mr. Corley, thank you miss short for joining us. We love you, we appreciate you. Thank you for my team for getting this all together. I love you. I thank you everyone for joining us. We appreciate you so much. And we will see you soon. Thanks everyone.