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

11:43PM Feb 7, 2024

Speakers:

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realize Hi everyone. Good evening. Good evening everyone. Thank you so much for being here tonight. It's getting into our folks that are tuning in on LegalZoom. We appreciate you joining us. We apologize for the late start for folks that are here in person, but they're getting dinner. So if you're listening in and you want dinner, you can join us. We got some food for you. But I want to go ahead and kick us off tonight. For our first lien potty training series of the year are folks who don't know, I have a background in media organizing and social work my team We basically work out of a community organizing lens, and we provide quarterly trainings on different topics that we think are topics that we know residents have asked us for more information on for some training on and today we are kicking it off with the city budget 101. We are here at IB W thank you so much IBEW for hosting us. And we will if folks don't mind going to the next screen I can go through the agenda for today. So just for folks know expectations of the nights. We will be going to give a lot of things in a second. And then then we're going to go through a presentation on the city budgets. We will allow for q&a At the very ends. Before we close we will be wrapping up by 730. We have a hard stop here at our site to close down. We'll have staff go home. So we'll go ahead and do that. But thank you, again IBEW for letting us host to the space here. Thank you to LPD we have initiative and Mr. Corley here live to answer any questions at the ends. And to help me in providing any information. I know I'm gonna need some help with the revenues of Mr. Corley. So when you get to that portion, I'm going to ask you to come up and then thank you to do it and our media services team are being here to make sure that this is accessible to folks that are at home. If you're your own. Thank you again for joining us. And when we get to the q&a portion, you will be able to unmute yourself and be have a question or always feel free to throughout the presentation, drop questions in the chat. And then when we get to we get to you. When we get to the questions. We'll go ahead and read out your questions during the q&a portion. Just some quick housekeeping if you're here in person in the restroom or just a head of us to the left. Again, there's dinner, there's water, please take care of yourself. We've got some pins and paper for notes. But with that, covering all the things you can go ahead and get started. So today again, we're talking about the city's budget. So for folks who don't know, our annual budget is not from January to December. Our annual budget goes from July 1 Through June 30 of the next year. And that is our fiscal year that the proposed budget is as you know how the city is going to spend down their money. We believe that budgets are moral documents that really show residents their priorities. The city's priorities, the major priorities, and what we what we see during the budget process is the mayor's proposed budget. So this is what the mayor is proposing. He shares it with with council. Just so folks know our budget must be balanced. So our revenues must equal our expenditures. We have LPD to help make sure that happens which we're really, really grateful for. And just so folks know when the budget is is rafted. The mayor proposes the budget for the next four years. So we are essentially forecasting what we think the costs will be what we think undershirts will be, which will always look different based on inflation based on the pandemic, whatever the case may be. That's when we do that forecasts for four years. But what we discuss the budget is the forecast but when we discuss is the upcoming annual budget this is what our budget books look like. We get a lovely book. It's about this big. It's a big boy. And it's full of pages that look like this. What we're gonna do now is go through a little bit about what the budget page looks like if we go back and then we're gonna also discuss the different departments. So for this one, this is simply showing the expenditures and revenues from the city. In the blue are all of the expenditures a large portion of our funding goes to staff to pay folks to do the work that we need for our services. And then we have our revenues which we will go into a little bit but the revenue is our income, the money that that we are going to be able to spend or our expenditures if you go to the next slide, please. The city's budgets is a $2.6 billion budget. And we get revenues that come in from different aspects. The highest amount of revenue that we receive for the city is taxes, assessments and interests. The next are sales and sales charges. You can then go to grants shared revenues through the states and federal governments. We have revenues from use of assets, contributions and transfers. And this is where I'm going to pause and ask Mr. Corley to come up because I spend a lot of time over here. If you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about the other revenues that we have coming down the pipeline from specialty contributions and transfers if you wouldn't mind touching on events, and then there's a little stand right.

Me me everybody. Thank you customers. I think we're Merrill joining us, allowing us to be here today. Really appreciate it. So with taxes just real quick. The reason why this largest number is this because that encompasses the missile missile income tax, property tax. Are your property tax, wage read tax. So those are the largest components of taxes in the city and assessments and so those are charges for services that some things like I got a cheat sheet here.

So that encompasses three fun, we have Earth Smith, personal services, we investment in order, these are city workers to have providing services for other departments, especially the enterprise agencies, so they pay the general fund for that. That's the biggest portion of that when you went and shared taxes and revenues. That's a revenue sharing that we get from the state revenues from use of assets. I believe those are Yes. That has earnings on investments. That's the biggest part of that. parking facility revenue, building rentals, things of that nature, contributions and transfers. And so

of course, this would not be the same order as what you have. It's not flipping a little bit. Contribution transfer. That would be contributions from other funds again. So D That would be so D that Okay, thank you I'm just short and licenses and permissions special charges.

That's BC for the most part. So thinking suppression charges

Yeah, especially charges construction. This person charges on business licenses. Okay, fines and court words. Worth bits and OTs parking fines are in this fines, property tax penalties, court fines, miscellaneous.

So miscellaneous receipts we have the 911 surcharge that comes in do Police Department. Sales of assets and compensation for losses that's sales of city property. Right. So, okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Corley. The contributions portion really was the one that I needed the most support on. And as you can see, cheat sheets are helpful, even though we've been doing this work especially LPD. For years. It's good to have a team to support each other because there's a lot that the city is managing. But thank you, Mr. Corley, and then grants will often receive those grants from either federal government and state governments. Sales and assets compensation for losses. I just want to note that this is something that city council's taking very seriously, especially when it comes to demolitions. So I know demolitions is a problem. You either love them or you don't. But as a council, we are trying to ensure that if we do demolish a privates building, but we are compensated for that. So all this matters, and these are the revenues that we have for the city. If you can go to the next slide, please. And this is just a pie chart of the general fund. So the general fund is comprised primarily of tax dollars but it does not include grants. And general fund money is the only money that we're able to move around because the other portions of the budgets are What's the word for it, Mr. Corley. Then we have general fund and then we have we have basically you can't touch it to the enterprise fund, special revenue funds, that the general fund is what we're looking for, for to provide to pay for ICT services. And it's just another breakdown of where the majority of our funding is coming from. And again, as we can see mean from our tax dollars. We're gonna go into now, what the budget process looks like a little bit by doing some department profiles. So right now, or what has happened over the past few months. Just so folks know the budget process really begins in the fall around the around fall time departments are meeting together, going over their budgets over their services and what they need, as they're building the budget to be presented to us. Come are having late winter so budgets departments are working to their budgets. Here we have B seed. This is an example. BC has a budget of 38 million. Their key responsibilities are monitoring lights, enforcing rental ordinances, granting commercial licenses and construction permits. That's where some of that revenue is coming from that we mentioned earlier, and monitoring environmental issues if you go next, this is what their budget looks like. So this is the seed and then these are their expenditures or departments blue so this is actual so this is where they have the funding and some of the funding that we have. So this is this is the revenues, Environmental Affairs Business Center. This is their no this is their budget for this upcoming for 2020 forces. So that's what this is what they had to work with. So this is the budget what they had to work with. And last year, we put $800,000 into the public health fund. So you can see here during the budget process, when we're adding money to to the department's budgets again, this is their budget to work with this is what they had to work with in 2024. We were able to see, actually when when they first came to council, I saw that there was a budget health lines and there had not been any money put into the public health fund at all. Until we we saw this fund and we said what's that fund for the fund is to support environmental impact mitigation. So when we heard that, we said we want to put some money in there we put $100,000 I believe I put 400 and member Johnson put in another four, which needed it to $800,000 and we pushed for it to be here so that we can do some air monitoring the push for some air filtration systems. And we get that funding for BCT use in their budgets in the public health funds. If you go to the next one. Another example here we have the Detroit water and sewage departments they have a budget of six $677 million. We know what the responsibility is to maintain the water and sewer and drainage infrastructure. They work through fixing our clogs. They replace our lead lines and then they also are the ones that implement the basement backup protection. program. If we go next, I just want to show you a few of these. Next we have Department of Public Works. So these are the departments that we hear about often. Their budget is 140 154 million. Their key responsibilities are to monitor waste collections and disposals. They do street maintenance, sidewalk repairs, they install speed cushions or speed bumps as we've seen them do snow removal and then they do all of the signage around the city. Next Gen services GSP. Again 36 million their key responsibilities are ground maintenance. So cutting grass, cutting the grass for empty lots, waiting up dlba vacant lots. They're the ones that remove the trees help plant the trees and maintain them. They work through the manager Parks and Rec and will control and then they're the ones that manage our fleets and facilities. HR D 68 million. They're responsible for home repairs for managing the Community Development Block Grant or CDBG funding for which really impacts our local nonprofits. They provide that your house, the Detroit Housing Services Office, and then the housing affordability work as well. They're the ones that really hold that hold those tasks. Next, and then here are some others. So we're not going through every departments will we'll get to how many hearings there will be in when we get to the budget portion. But here's some other departments that we get in that really beautiful thin booklets. We have fired the police departments at 38 million fire at 150 million health departments at 43. Add six the land bank that's not lambic is not Detroit's departments, but it is a city authority. So we have the land bank, as well as the museum that we provide funding for and the Trump building authority as well as the zoo. So there there are some pieces that cities still provide some support for but the ones that aren't asterisks are not city. They're not they're non departmental and we'll get to that in a minute. And just to note as well, we did not fund schools or libraries, or state or county services. Those are those are not funded to the city budget. Go next. So once again, we started with sharing that budgets are a reflection of our priorities. If you see this right here based on everything that I just shared, we are prioritizing, making sure that we have systems that work we have water. We're also making sure that admin is making sure that there's books feel safe with police that the police on the streets and that were investing in city services. And then PDD might one might say, Where's the priority in that? We're always pushing for more money for our planning departments as well. We actually push for 2 million to revamp the Master Plan, which we'll we'll talk to that but we'll talk about that in a minute. But these are only reflective of the departments that we just shared right now. And this is one way that you can see that you can view how we're prioritizing what we're investing in our monies in the next level. So the budget process is happening soon. As I mentioned, it really begins in the fall. We are now at the Winter preparing or budget hearings. And this is going to be the timeline for our budget processes this year. So Thursday, March 7, the mayor is going to present his proposed budget to city council, march 11. City Council is going to begin our budget hearings. Mr. Corley, I believe we're going to have 40 eights 4646 budget hearings. So they're going to be 46 budget hearings. And we'll go into what those look like in a minute. But essentially, we will have an hour or so to go over each city departments to go over their budget to ask them questions about their services, about their budget. Do they have enough money

are they utilizing all their money? How are the cert How are the programs going? Are they working? Are they not for us to figure out for us and really input our our priorities and try to support the services that we want to make sure are successful. So we've got city council here in person March 11. We're gonna go all the way through to April 1. So we have budget hearings. Again, this is just when we hear from EPA departments. Once we begin to hear once we get into executive sessions, which are yes which we see here are going to start April 1 executive session is really when it's just counsel at the table negotiating working with LPD asking for supports, you know, Mr. Quarterly, we heard this. I am Mr. Crowley. I want to make sure that I have $3 million to repair a sinkhole that is a lawn you know, Michigan Avenue Center Street I believe it is so you know like a city streets. And can you help me identify where a surplus might be or if they've had a surplus because we're not working? With a surplus? Where Where can we pull money essentially from which departments to be able to meet that goal of mine. And that's really what it is. We're spending all of executive session just shifting money around shifting the money and the priorities in which we want and it's important during the budget to ask questions, and that's when we that's when we find out I get to say the $800,000 that I put into this public health fund was spent down yes greets. Do you need more funding? Yes. Great. Can you put an additional million dollars into the public health fund or I get to say, you know, fire has this program to train their departments to all be social workers. Did you do that? No. Okay, so you have $3 million that was not utilized. I'm gonna take that back and put it somewhere else. So it's a way to really hold us accountable, that we're spending down our money responsibly, and that we're shifting the money where it needs to go to be able to meet our goals. That's Executive Session. It's really just Council speaking with our LPD to figure out what our proposed budgets are. It's all sorted. I mean, we get to once we've gone through, essentially searching for money that you want to move around. And at the table, we get to say I want to pull money from DPW and put it in HRD. Here's how much I want to put and it's just session after session after session of council negotiating back and forth to figure out how we're going to we're going to move money around. We then go into a vote. Our vote is going to be April 8. We're voting on the budgets, April 12. The mayor has the ability to veto to veto and then if the mayor does veto, then we're able to override the veto if it's unthinkable, frankly, I have been told since our current mayor has been in office, there has been no veto, which is great. So really, it's it's about making sure that the budget we propose is the one that Lee wants. And I'm happy to see a majority of the assets that we've had for the budget have been grants. It was just exciting. Next, please. We're gonna now show you a little bit about a little bit of how the public hearings work. We mentioned non departmental earlier so if you'd like hearing an example of what a budget hearing looks like.

You ready? morning and thank you again. Mr. George and I are here to speak to the non departmental debt service in the legacy pensions. component of the budget. This will cover some areas that have already been covered in previous budget hearings, but these are two very substantial parts of the budget. So we wanted to provide a brief overview today and answer any questions the council may have. So first, that service and legacy pension department totals $287.2 million. So these are expenses that don't belong to any specific department. They represent the fixed charges of the city of Detroit $148.9 million is our legacy pension contributions that resume in fiscal year 2024, which we discussed during the mayor's budget address back on March 3. They are newly reported in this department along with debt service. Funding for pensions was previously in the non departmental section. This part of the budget also includes $83.3 million of general fund support for LT geo bond debt service. As well as a news $10 million proposed for a new installment purchase agreement payments to begin financing fleet replacements instead of just trying to pay as we go. And then lastly, there's $55 million of debt millage supported debt service, which is what repays you TGL bonds which we'll cover very briefly in a little more detail ahead.

Once again, Mr. Watson if the clerk would know we've been joined by member Young, thank you.

So the non departmental section in the budget totals $166.4 million dollars, and includes various programs and funding sources that had been discussed in many of the previous hearings throughout the budget season calendar, over $100 million of support for transportation agencies like e dot and the airport, as well as our cultural institutions, museums and other external agencies. Over $52 million of centralized payments and risk management expenses. So this is largely General Fund supported rent and utility costs that we consolidated from various departmental budgets into nonprime mental and some of which was previously there to begin with. But one item we did add here and this come up previously at the DoD hearing as well as others is a new $7 million Workforce Investment reserve. The idea there being having money set aside for more competitive wage rates that may not have settled yet. So I mean, there's been a lot of discussion about we're in dialogue with the bus drivers about pay raises. There's future union negotiations coming up as labor contracts expire. So this funding set aside to help pay for any additional costs that may come out of those negotiations beyond the standard wage patterns that are in all the Department Budgets. So I think during the hearing, there was some dialogue about what's in the budget and there was another piece this is that other piece $3.8 million for the board of police commissioners over $3 million for media services. We newly moved project clean slate from the law department to non departmental since it is an independent program. And this budget proposes a $600,000 increase to provide a clean slate to allow us to do an additional 1000 expungements next year. This part of the budget includes the $1.6 million for elected officials and compensation funding for board of ethics as well as two separate standalone programs with the goal line program that provides after school programming and transportation support in northwest Detroit as well as $200,000 for the EITC outreach program that happens during tax season every year.

Thank you, Mr. Watson. So that was Mr. Watson who works with our vehicles office, who gave us a little bit of a breakdown into departmental budgets. And now we're going to go into the q&a portion. As I mentioned, budget hearings are really a time for us to hear from departments and let us know what money they have, how they're going to spend it and then we get to spend some time really for clarity or accountability or some insight into how we can potentially support their budget or shift some things around based on what we think would be best. So now we're gonna go into a q&a detail portion where I'm asking questions of Mr. Watson. Thank you, Madam President. Good morning. Good to see you. My question or questions revolve around your city's knowledge and how is incredibly difficult for both our residents and businesses were difficult and expensive to do business here in the city. And quite frankly, I would like that to change. So appreciate knowing that we are going to reduce our meals here to Mills over the next few years. But frankly, I believe the last time we checked our property tax religious, credibly high compared to our neighboring municipalities, I know that we're working on these late tax states, and I'm wondering, what else are you doing to lower the property taxes is to lower the taxes in the villages for our residents, and essentially their businesses here as well?

Through the Chair, so it's always a difficult trade off if we were to reduce the operating expense and that would be less general fund revenue for the various programs and services that trihard are receiving. Basically, reducing the millage we you know, essentially just like another cost in the budget that we'd have to find an offset or but we're interested in our our millage is very high compared to other jurisdictions. And so we're very excited that we're able to reduce the debt knowledge because that our debt service is going down and property values are rising. And as you heard Mr. Rising discussed earlier, the land value tax rate will help but, but really, it comes down to you know, also City's share of the knowledge is only about other. There's other jurisdictions that are adding to that expert and as well and again, for very important services. You know, between the County, the county does the schools, the library, as well as the other regional millage is on the bill is a set of very difficult choices of what spending would we reduce if we wanted to reduce the X ray. You know, and that's, you know, cities something that cities wrestled with for many, many years. Certainly, we could, you know, we can look into the options for that but again, you will ultimately you know, ways to let us funding to do the many programs and services that Detroiters demand.

So, we're gonna answer from the office that manages their money that wants to make sure that we kind of have what the budget process looks like. What we're going to do now is show you an example of public comments. So during every budget hearing after each hearing, there's a portion there's a public comment portion, or actually recently, at the end of all the hearings, there is an opportunity for the public to make a public comment. So we welcome and encourage folks to come out to give public comments. At this point of the of the process. I believe public comments about one minute usually it's too little because everything is so strung together to make the timeline. We'll get one minute, or we're going to show you right now an example of a really good public comments for Mr. Kloster.

Berman appears to be thrown off by us and resources and abundant red tape. Tape the city government was then lost my community and I went into five or what was advertised as Rex and when we got here, they were laws and so we felt discouraged. And let's let can we get programs in which the grassroots will qualify ie credit scores, collateral being one of the stumbling blocks that disqualifies a lot of our rational citizens here. Thank you, Mr. Foster. You can give your precious questions. Okay, thank you.

Yes, thank you, sir. Is a friendly face to the council is always there and does an incredible job for public comments. So if you ever see him around, ask him for his tips because he's gotten very good at it. And just to be clear, shares are the ones that sent the times for public comments and during the budget process, our council presidents is the one that shares the process and how to participate in the process. There is a way to do so in person. You're always welcome to come downtown to the Holman young building and go to the 13th floor. That's where we'll be during each hearing. You can tune in and make public comments in person. You can also tune in online so all of this is online via zoom. We can share these outs as well if folks are listening in or if he wants his information, we will share all this information out in our newsletter. But here's where you can access it. There will be a zoom, you're able to make the comments you can also call in and you'll be able to raise your hand by pressing nine two so you can still be a part of the process. And then if you're interested on just tuning in, and following along, you can chat you can tune in to try and open to hear what's going on. Want to let everyone know as a note again, the limit for public comment is set by the chair. You are going if you want to make a public comment you're going to be called on least on when you raise your hand when you raise your hands so you'll be called on in that way. And then when the chair cuts off public comment after that. If you hear the chair say public the comment is now cut off and you wanted to make a comment comment unfortunately you wouldn't be able to because that was at the time allowed us to collect public comments, requests. That's why I'm gonna just share briefly what we asked for last year. so last year, we were able to reallocate $1.7 million. Again, we were able to put 400,000 into the public health funds member Johnson put another 400 there as well which is what you saw there that 800,000 That was their budget. And, and that's funding that we were able to put their through this process last year. The HTC we were able to the health department to be able to allocate.

It'll be launching again soon. Early this year, we're looking to relaunch the Detroit IP program, which I know so many people are our reliance on and it's really helpful for them. And then we were able to put money into the immigration Task Force or programming and a million dollars towards you. That has been undergoing a lot of infrastructure challenges. So really happy and honored to help you. If you haven't checked it out lately. It's beautiful. So please do check that out. Next, this year, what we're asking for just to give you all a brief rundown. And I have an incredible team, we have a list of assets that we collect all year throughout the year. So based on what we've been hearing from our residents, here's what we're going to be asking for this year. More violence lighting. We have a map of the bikes in our district that needs to be relived. We were talking with the authority to make sure that we have a list of targets that we want to bring back into functioning mode. So more by like lighting, streetscape projects, and 42 times more to ones by then on spring walls and I'm Werner and Dragoon crossing. We're seeing a lot of need to do some road diets to make it more difficult for trucks to be driving around our neighborhoods. So we're looking into doing some streetscaping sidewalk repairs always in need of Sagittarius, especially for our seniors, low income folks looks with with disabilities. Always investing more in your quality improvements. So will will most likely try to put more money into the public health funds are always pushing encourage candidates, improvements and accessibility as well as home repair grants. Every year. We asked to put money into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund as well that was put into this previous budget as well. And that's something that was asked for council presidents and we all supported next. So now that you know that the budget how it works, how to read the book, How to access the information, what the process looks like, we highly encourage you to be a part of the process. Because it's yours. It's yours to engage. And we hope this is helpful for you. And we strongly encourage you to participate. One way you can do so as you can put you can use yourself as a residence you might work for you might be a part of a law club or nonprofits. We have incredible nonprofits like disability power, who has their policy analysts listening to everything makes public comments after each hearing. And it's really following the process with us and advocating for the things that they want to see in the budget. And not everything but but a lot of those things. Some of the things that that they asked for are then able to be reflected on the budget so highly encourage folks to do so it can be successful. So Gather your friends, gather your neighbors your block club, figure out what are your specific asks so are you asking for? Is Are there no street signs in your neighborhood? Are they are they gone? Do you use are there blocks in your neighborhood that have absolutely no sidewalks? Do you need more money for home repairs? Federal federal rates and we just mentioned some of those departments. So what is your ask and make sure you have a number next to it and let us know what that is comfortable public comments, binds the department's hearings just to focus in your home or office as we get closer. We're going to share all the hearings. So we're going to have a calendar with all the hearings, what time they're going to be, they are all subject to change that will be subject to change. So if it changes we're sorry, but we are going to try our best to share the information as as it comes because sometimes for the most part there are always some changes. Because we may run late because a program might not be ready etc, etc. But we do share those hearings that you'll have access to if you know you want to talk or during dpbs budget hearing. We'll go to the calendar you'll find their hearing you'll listen to their to their portion, City Council's questions, and then you can make public comments as well. You can write a letter or petition we encourage you to send your information your letter position to every council member to your district manager to the administration's office. We are all working on this together and the more squeaky wheels the better. You can feel free to write op eds do fun social media marketing. If you want to really show us what the issue is, is a massive Hall. Let us know let us see it. Be creative. Definitely definitely advocate for the things that you want to see because we will be right there. tuning in and very much happy to support and then you're also able to contact the Office of Budget at any time at your budget at Detroit mi.gov. Next slide please. Now I want to take the time a brief moment to hear from residents and also to hear if folks are online. And you have any priorities that you want us to be advocating for please do share. Now. I'm going to ask as my team if someone is listening in via zoom. If we do have anyone that raises their hands with a suggestion or what they want to see in next year's budget let me know we can we can zoom in. But I do want to take a minute to hear if anybody has any suggestion

previous meeting talking about the budget problem, I got it. Ah, there are two streetlights on every street. I'm not very far from the one at the end of my block, and that area in front of my house is totally dark. So I feel compelled to leave my porch light on all night. You know, as a safety measure. I think the city's policy of having two streetlights on a block is totally wrong. It leaves large parts of these blocks dark and unsafe.

only thing good so please leave and just the you know, that's the question that I asked I think every budget hearing that I've had so far is is we we talked to you already and we say lights just aren't wide enough. It's the illumination is not hitting the whole block. And they acknowledge that as well. So I think it's you know, continuing to seek that so that they can hopefully when we have this funding and we have the resources invested in better technology that illuminates better lighting. Thank you, we can definitely make sure to bring that up again. During the budget cycle during the budget hearings. Anything online folks is not going to move so long. Okay, we're we're gonna keep it going. Always, always, especially during this time. Well, we got one we got one so we'll go back to the questions portion please.

We're gonna run over, we're gonna run on my core teachings. I'm gonna read the question out again for everyone.

Is there additional funds for the CDBG Dr. program for 42 09 Due to the constant flooding on libera noi. So

this is regarding the basement cyclop protection program that we just set aside we we are utilizing CDBG rd funding and I know we have four to 10 is receiving some funds and there was a flyer that was just sent about this as well. From what I know when it comes to ctgb CDBG funding, it's that it's funny that it sets its funding if we're going to receive more funding. They're also federal federal funds. So unless we receive more federal funds, that is the funding that we have. Now of course we're happy to do and what we are doing for other city services. We can always advocate at the federal level for for more resources. And we are constantly asking for folks for are constantly asking for resources for basement backup protections, especially in 49, four to 2014 when seven when there's been flooding, but at the moment that money is so that's it is federal, and until we get more money. It's the money that we have to work with. And it sounds like we're just getting into general questions now. So we'll go into general questions now.

The next question, is there any funding available for youth and leadership development programs in southwest Detroit?

So one that I can definitely point out is our Detroit young talent program we hire 1000s of Detroiters that range I believe from 16 to about 24 Don't quote me on those exact numbers. That seems to be right. I went into the GED YT program actually, I worked for a local nonprofit somewhere in the city that then utilized city funding. So you don't have to necessarily be you know, it's it's, it's a wider, wider enough range. I definitely capture some some young folks that might be in need of some good work and some professional development training. But first thing that comes to mind is really yc. That's every summer. Just so folks know our office hires folks to do the program. I believe we hire from board to like six folks every year. We have that funding set aside. And our program has a training where we work with young people and tell them about local governments, about community organizing. We get you on board over the summer, your cost rate or the time that you're done with us. And it's a good way to learn about local governments, be engaged and grow some of your professional developments and leadership developments with the sites that Mr. Corley everything else we have really as adults workforce preparation that I can think of, I don't know what do you think it is one, I can't really think of anything else that seems to be what we have right now.

She individuals clarified asking if there is a specific line item requested in the budget for a youth development organization so it sounds like it's there.

Oh, specifically. No, we, you know, again, the city run city services. It sounds like a US specific would be programming, maybe a nonprofit, maybe an after school program. We don't provide that service to the city. of

Detroit. I think you just answer this follow up is can we make those like an earmark?

Again, this would have to be a program through the city like a GED yc. I mean, we just heard under we just heard Mr. Mr. Watson say that we have a clean slate program that's outside, but we still funding it. I again, highly encouraged because if you want to come to get together, say here's a program that we want to hear the outcomes, you know, we think it should look like this and then we can get together around that and see where it can go. But at the moment, we we don't provide those services. Okay. It seems like those are the only questions that we have at the moment. I will move us along now to the rest of the presentation. And I am sure that last comment. I really hope that you're not to discourage if anything, I really encourage you to be creative. And to advocate and to organize and to bring people together because we might we might have that in the future. And you can help us get there. So regarding public comments, again, we're getting close to the interviews and teaching but we really want to emphasize your your participation in the process. And when it comes to public comments, I'm prepared to make a one minutes. Comments. You might get a minute and a half, you might get two minutes, but if you write it down into one minute, you should be good. You should be safe. We mean what you want to write that in advance. I think folks get nervous. I know I do. I ramble if I'm not prepared and if I'm nervous. So be prepared or write down your your thoughts. Make it short and to the points. It's a special note here. We've seen a lot of these a lot of these public comments and there's time taking away when there is a lot of like, Thank you, council members. Thank you, Mayor, that's about 10 seconds that you could have used to make your points. And then there's also a lot of time taken away by saying things like I do not like this one minutes public comment that I wish I had more time to make my comments I would have had so many more things to say in this public comment and then your time is up. So just I hear you. Yes. Yes. And just giving you for a warning. Now we have one minute you utilize it and we have seen some really good comments be done in one minute. Be specific about why you support a budget item or why you don't think it's problematic or an issue. Know that we don't know not all council members know what's going on on the east side or over by by by by live in our corridor. So be specific, give some context if you can, within that minute you know, say you know, I live on on on electric and there's a street sign that's not turned on. You know, I have children we have to walk to school, be specific, give some context as to why it's an issue. If you're listening in and if you hear three other people in front of you make the same comment that you're making, and you want to do and you have another point to make just to make that points. And if you have time, you can say and I did know the previous council or the previous public comments or I agree with other public commenters, just one so that way you can at least be like another check mark another vote essentially, on some of the the approvals or or support or not support for some of these items. It'll be helpful for us to know. So again, try to avoid repeating yourself, but do make it known what you support and what you don't and if you have a new point, focus on that new point for us because we do listen and we're gathering all together. This last piece of people like professional and respectful is only here because we are people I know where the governments and other government can suck can be really slow. It's frustrating for all of us. But we are people who care very deeply, especially me my team and honey goes a long way y'all it goes a long way. So if we're smart, respectful, or professional employees, we're able to then work together get things done. And move forward next. We went into any last minute questions now that we've heard, the budget process, the budget book, How to be engaged, any questions online from folks. Any questions here? Dave?

actually have two comments. One you triggered by a comment you made. You and I live at the same end of McGraw there's no speed signs on McGraw you want to take care of your neighborhood and get those signs up? Because I think people are driving a lot faster than what the speed limit probably is. Secondly, there's sort of a pet peeve of mine. I heard it on the DOM TAS the other day, and you sort of referred to it I realized that the tax rate in Detroit is very, very high. But our assessed, valuations are very, very low. So we really don't pay that much. I'm paying 700 roughly $700 a year in property taxes. I talked to friends of mine who live in the suburbs and and it's nothing for them to pay five or $6,000 a year. So I don't complain about my property taxes knowing the incredible rates, other people are paying and other places.

Maybe shoot your comments. We will look at McGraw we will ask residents if they agree because books are all about it. Well, we can double check McGraw because you're right. There's a lot of the four wheelers out there and they might not be too happy about the speed bumps so we can look into that TV. We have

a question online. The city's budget priorities outreach seems to be an attempt eco governance in the budget process. However, resident input does not seem to translate into budget allocations. Other cities have used participatory budgeting to give residents power over allocations. Its Council discussed such a process.

I love this question. Yes, I have. During my very first budgets process, I asked Do you wait for that same system? Or if you look into this? There just hadn't been? I mean, I was the only one that mentioned this. Nobody else was talking about it. The fact that that question was just asked shows me that there is interest, so I'm happy to ask again. But yes, I completely agree. And this is a critique that I've had of the administration, because I've sat down through those meetings. I say, here's the budget, what do you want to see? But actually, you can only do these five things. And that to me is limiting to like our thinking and creativity. And if we can't do it, that's fine, but at least allow us to plant some seeds to hear from what they wants us to be working towards. And I said this to them and they're like, Okay, we get it. But there is this other level of participatory budgeting. That's and I know, like if this is a New York, oh, we're gonna totally do this now. So if this isn't New York, they will set aside like a million dollars. And they'll say, you know, presidents, what do you want to do with this million dollars like that is direct actual participation in telling me exactly where you want the money to go to? Now can it be the full budget? Probably not. But can we set aside some of our surplus money to be directly directed by residents? We probably can. Um, so thank you for the question. I have brought this up. It's a lack of resources or a system like this. But we can definitely bring it up again and thank you for your interest that just gives me more motivation to push for this. All right. Well, while we wait for more questions, we'll go to the last slide, to share folks has been engaged with us. So just thank you so much to all over I think we have a full house. We'll resume. Thank you all so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Odyssey engage with us. So these are some upcoming events that we have. We have our coffee our next week is the 22nd next week, two weeks from now, in two weeks, we're going to be at Scruggs cafe, if you know Craig's cafe, you know they have good burritos and we're going to happen that Thursday. So I welcome you all to join. I am looking forward to the burritos that same day, we are going to have a D six night roller K which I'm really excited about that out WD T for shutting out our events. We appreciate it. We're gonna be a roller cane I think the first 102 150 the first 250 folks that join this, you get free entry pizza hop. So please go ahead and join us and skates all included in your family should be a lot of fun and relocate is a beautiful, beautiful gym. In for two and seven. Our next monthly meeting is going to be on Wednesday, March 6. And then one thing that our office does, we don't have an in district office but we do float around the whole districts. So we have coffee hours that we hold at different rec centers are going to be next on the 12th from three to five and equity Alliance on the nine scenes contributor five and nominee Rex winner from on February 26 from four to six. We also have our newsletter that TJ works stored on it's full of really incredible resources. So please sign up for that. If you haven't already. And all of our informations in the bottom here. Always feel free to call or email us if you have any questions or if you have any needs. I believe that is our last slide. I think we are great. The clock is right there on time. Thank you all so much for being here. We really appreciate it Mr. Corley. Before I wrap up, Mr. Corley, please come up here. Let us know your final thoughts on the budgets. And thank you again for being here.

Thank you council member again. Wonderful, wonderful as usual viewpoints I just want to make real quick for the citizens. And that's I remember when you were talking about castles changes to the budget and how we have to take monies from say one pot of money one appropriation to another I just want to make cannot change the revenue so the revenue by the February revenue estimating conference which is actually coming up on this Monday that really encourage citizens to look in to that revenue estimating conference it is you can look at it from zoom and there's there's a revenue conference of our board. It comprises of the Chief Financial Officer of the city, state treasurer or designee and academia. So we have economists from when the new bill that participates and so the revenues are presented to the revenue Conference Board by Mr. Watson his team and oh CFO, and they vote on those revenues. And once they vote on the revenues and when I say revenues, that's the revenues for an entire city once they vote on revenues the mere by city code uses those revenues to build his budget that's going to be presented to city council. So this year, of course on March the seventh and Thursday, March 7, so Castle cannot change the revenues once those revenues are set by the revenue Conference Board. So you're right in order for council have to find its changes to the budget. They have to take money from another another location. Now, but those issues that council raises during executive session that does not involve a change in monies. But there's a policy that counsel maybe wants to for the mayor to or the administration to look into for the upcoming fiscal year. And so policy issues with this is from the city council that maybe has to find the money for closing the resolution. And so the Close button, again, is something that just expresses Council's desire for the administration to look into. If we can find money to do it, maybe can use a current department or program to to provide an answer to the consul's no wish list or whatever. Now I also want to put in a plug for Ms. Short, who is going to help me provide a status report. On Castle's changes to the budget. of the current year's budget, fiscal 2024. That's about two or three weeks that'd be coming up hopefully. And so she doesn't want to have a job for me so I'll retire so

so so yeah, essentially, it'll be coming out on consoles, changes to the current fiscal year's budget. And then lastly Oh, I think I covered it all. Wow. Okay, so thank you very much.

Appreciate you please never retire Mr. Corley. I feel so good about the city because we have staff that have been here for so long and love it and believe in it so deeply. It's really motivating, inspiring, so I'm really, really glad to have you all thank you for being here. We appreciate it. We appreciate you. And thank you for sharing that information. And yes, the revenue estimating conference. You can even go on in person is it usually at Huddinge or Oh, it's and came back. So it's the the conference is is in kaymak so you feel free to either tune in online or be there in person to hear about the revenues that we're gonna have to work with or that year. Thank you, Mr. Corley, for that piece just for anything you want to add. Okay. I believe then we are all sets. There's no more questions online. Thank you everyone for joining us tonight. Take some food home. Have a great evening. And thank you so much for being here. We appreciate you. Thank you