Budget — Office of the Chief Financial Officer, All Divisions / Non-Departmental/Capital Budget/Debt Service

6:08PM Mar 27, 2024

Speakers:

President Sheffield

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Progress

You can try number one

right Good afternoon we will call back to order the expanded budget Finance and Audit standing committee for the purposes of our budget hearings. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Scott Benson. Councilmember Fred Hall, the third present. Councilmember Leticia Johnson. President, Councilmember Gabriela Santiago Romero. Councilmember Mary waters present councilmember Angela Whitfield Callaway, Councilmember Coleman Young the second. Council President Pro Tem James Tate, Council President Mary Sheffield. You have a quorum present. Madam President.

Thank you there being a quorum present. We are back in session and we will go straight to our budget hearing for the CFOs office. Good afternoon J rising with data Meyer and Mr. Watson. The floor is yours. Thank you very

much. We have a short presentation to go through and then be happy to answer any questions. With me today as you as you said, Start admiring Mr. Watson. I've also have with us who provide a little commentary on their own departments, the assessor Alan Horne, the Treasurer Nikhil, Nikhil Patel and Sandra stopped may be on the on the on the screen depending on how well she feels. She's been very sick this week. So Tony Roberts is here as your deputy. So if I could start off and I will then turn it over to Stottlemyre to kind of talk about some of the some of the dollar amounts. I always like to kind of go through remind Council we're only with the role of the CFOs office and it was created under state law and the organization wise, I have under my authority the assessor's office the budget office contractual contracting procurement OCP the controller who's responsible for the audit and payroll activities, the department financial services, whose larger department who works on the day to day finance and procurement activities and monthly monthly financials for all the departments as well as was the council and the council agencies, office development grants and the Treasury Department. So as you know, this is the office of chief financial officer was a product of the bankruptcy and the legislature passed the statute creating the office and combining all the functions of the budget office and the finance office in the department's related to financial and budget activities and giving a great blessing the power to the CFO to supervise him and all all financial activities of the city. One of the extraordinary powers it gave under state laws the CFO is obligated to determine whether or not after the budget is passed, whether it's balanced. It's balanced with the current years of it for a four year period of time. Very do that. As a consequence with the FRC, the Financial Review Commission, resuming oversight over the city so we appreciate how much work Council puts into the budget and our ability for the last nine years to balance it and not have and be outside of oversight. They have oversight weighed by the FRC. You know we also submit financial impact statements the character of the proposed policy, ordinance or budgetary decision. And as part of that function, we can compel information from any city employee or officer to allow us to monitor and supervise financial activities of the city in the last year, especially I think I bet there's certain things to highlight this week. As you know, the city's with the help of everyone in this room and beyond. was upgraded by Moody's two notches, which is a lot more than we expected from be a one which is the highest non investment grade rating to be double a two, which is two steps above the lowest. It also gave us a positive outlook, which being said if we keep our path they're indicating that we will be in line for an upgrade consideration next year. You know, we take one of the reasons we get this upgrade is because we've taken pride to finish our audits on time. And we received the GFO a certificate of achievement of excellence in financial reporting. The same is true on the budget that we have a balanced budget for the ninth year in a row. And we've been awarded the GFO a award for achievement and budgeting. A big part of what our CFO has been doing for the last couple of years. It's been trained to manage, not necessarily select but manage the process of ARPA compliance. And so that so that they $126 billion of federal government provided the city for our public purposes. But we're spending it within the timelines and obligate with the time right so far. We have programmed at 7% and 3%. We haven't programmed, officially has been internally dedicated to programs that we know we will bring to council in the next month or so related to housing purposes, but we'll have to do transfers from other purposes which were appropriate for our into the housing authorization in order to complete those those projects. That's why the website indicates about a $20 million gap between the 890s this 826 And what we've programmed so far, it's just because we don't want to presume Council's approval of those projects. But we would hope the council will consider it favorably. The housing projects we bring the Council for approval. We've also obligated enter into contracts with folks to complete the projects are projects or dedicated to personnel 80% of the money and so far today spent about 30%. One of the things we've also really accomplished in the last couple of years, and we really want to double down in the next year is increasing income tax collections. Make sure everyone's obligated to pay income tax is actually filing in the city and that if you're living the city, and filing as a non filing because you're claiming a residence in your cottage or someplace outside the city that we find you make sure you're paying your index. Additionally, people who work in the city and coming to work in the city who are non residents. We want to make sure we find those people also so they contribute to the city's revenues. Finally, on the other side, we wanted to make sure that it was entitled to the benefits to CDs offerings such as hope, exemptions, it is opportunity to file and we have that bilingual considered and we pride ourselves on getting this done every year so we don't leave people who have filed on timely basis without the exemptions. And so, last year, we fully completed every application with the board reviews approval that was filed for July or December action. So the next year we got similar priorities. You know our fiscal stability really is always our priority. Maintain our boat belts budget working with counselors identify areas which will win the council help add to maintain budget balance. And we also want to maximize all federal state philanthropic revenues we can to supplement the city's tax revenues. As you know, we're going to contribute to legacy pension funds this year. On a level principal basis, this is C boiserie. We'll talk about this a little bit more in the non departmental discussion, but that what we've decided to do is advance as fast as we can without impairing the budget funds into the pension legacy pension funds. So the beneficiaries will be formed with those pension funds will have been more fully funded as quickly as possible. Well, we continue to implement the assessment ordinance consoles past there has been some of the challenge as everyone discussed yesterday, but we are committed to it. Everything legally we can do under that ordinance. We will do and we also want to have an effort in the next year to see if we can simplify tax bills. Right now. You literally can get multiple tax bills for the same piece of property. You can get any z you can get a land bill you can get a bill on your garage, you can get land for your garage. I mean it is it's really kind of crazy when you think about it when people have to get these books and sort of really why they're getting multiple bills or five bills at a time for the same taxes. And part of the problem is state has a single vendor, which is we're authorized to contract with to derive tax bills. So we're trying to work with the state and we're the vendor to consolidate the textbooks into a simple, understandable single bill that people can rely upon. As part of our proposal for funds for the for the year. Will be funding to allow us to do that. Contracting procurement is also going to be a focus in the next year. Members have commented on that a number of times to us how much time the council spends disproportionately approving 25 $30,000 contracts for just simple day to day items. It takes up an enormous amount of Council's time, and we think we could do it under a way that council has sufficient oversight but streamline this process and origins we're proposing to council in the next few weeks. We're also trying to make it easier for people to pay the tax bills and the ways that you can pay their tax bill so we're proving the payment platform on which you can pay and the treasurer can speak to that.

Every year. We look at the findings we get against the audit, we instituted a procedure we called F cap to work with our auditors to figure out is what do we need to do to get rid of these findings. So we continue to do that under John Edwards supervision. And finally, you know, as I discussed, we're going to continue to oversight our programs. We have to obligate all the money by the end of this year. We got suspended by the end of 26. So we are laser focused on this with the first step of that which is obligation, and it's starting to ramp up making sure that sub recipients who may have this money are billing us on time. And we don't want situations where sub recipients are getting the money who actually spending their own money but not billing us. We want to pay them. But we have to make it easier for the sub recipients to bill us so that we can pay them for the work they're doing for us because right now it doesn't look like we're spending the money as fast as they are. So with that priority list, I will turn it over to Mr. Byer. Talk about what the budget itself is proposing.

Thank you, Mr. Rising. Good afternoon. I'm Tanya Steinmeier, Deputy CFO over policy and administration. So this slide shows the O CFO budget by the six major summary categories. So you'll see that our total is actually an increase of $3.3 million over the prior year general fund total, which is actually a 5% increase in our budget. However 1.2 million of that is for one time expenditures for the office of the assessor. So our actual recurring budget is only an increase of 3%. As Mr. Rising indicated, efforts are going to be going into the one time project of simplify and consolidate our property tax bills. So that's the that makes up a lot of the increase that you see in the salaries and wages category. And then under professional contractual services. There's also one time dollars there as well about $900,000. That accounts for the majority of that increase there. On the next slide, you will see the old CFO general fund only positions. So here you'll see that our current budget has 400 positions. Our proposed budget is 408. If you look at the right column with a variance, you'll see that assessors has five additional positions. Three of those, again are the one time positions related to the simplification of the property tax bills. Also the development and grants is up six positions but that's actually a transfer of positions from the comptroller's office. And then we have five additional positions in the Department of Financial Services which is commonly called Oh DFS, and those five positions are going to be reimbursed by either DDOT or HRD. So those are all reimbursable positions. So we're basically proposing a very flat budget here. I also want to point out though, before we move on, that there is also vacancy savings reflected in our budget, which means that there are other 408 positions that you see here. Only 402 would be funded for the entire fiscal year. Now of course, we're not likely to have all positions funded and be filled by the beginning of the fiscal year all the way to the end. But if we were we would only be able to hire 402 versus a 408. And this is something that we've done throughout the city departments where there's this vacancy savings that is incorporated in the numbers that you see on the next slide the black line here actually shows how we've been right sizing and leaning the department. So since fiscal year 2020. We had at that time 516 budget general fund positions. Right now we're down to the 408 which is a 21% reduction. In our positions over that period. And then the green bars show how much our budget has changed since fiscal year 2020 through now, and it only shows us 6% growth. So we're definitely in the process of doing some overall restructuring. And oh CFO and making sure that we're aligning our positions to our needs. And as we become more efficient. You know, we've discovered that we may need fewer people, but we may have to pay a little more. You know, and we're in the process of doing that, you know, throughout our organization. And with that, I will turn it over to our treasurer Nikhil Patel.

Good afternoon counsel through the chair, my name is Nikhil Patel. I'm the Deputy CFO and treasurer. So what you see in front of you is four different graphs, or three different graphs rather, on the top left. What you'll see is we've had an increase in property tax refunds that we've processed from 2019 through current state, and a lot of that has been driven by the activity that goes on with the border review at the assessor's and that really leading to changes of the property tax bills over payments and OS processing through those refunds. What I'll call out there is with the increase in property tax refunds, a problem that routinely comes up is people getting their money back in time. So as Jay alluded to, one of the reasons why we wanted to improve the payment platform that people have an option to pay with is to make this process much more efficient. Another one of our program offerings within Treasury is the plan ahead program. And so the plan ad program allows individuals to who don't necessarily have a mortgage through which they're paying their property tax bills to effectively put money into an account that can then get applied to their property tax bills when it becomes open on July 1. So it's a saving mechanism. So for example, right now it's tax season, they get their income tax refunds if they want to set aside money already to pay towards their property tax bills, they can do that. And that's helpful because people often have issues with planning out 12 months in advance without a mortgage escrow and so this program helps them to do that. And as you've seen since the inception of the program in 2019, we've increased the number of partials that had been rolled distinct parcels that 36% year over year, and so we're continuing to see increased appetite for this program. And one of the cool things we've seen recently since the start of the program this year is we've had very few people saying they want to withdraw for the program. So the technology is working, it's sticking and people are excited to actually use that and many of the payments made into the program our large one time payments indicating that they're probably paying all of their property taxes up front and we'll get sweeped into their accounts, starting July one. And then lastly, on the right hand side you see a graph that represents our clearance process. So at the city of Detroit, if you're a business or an individual that wants to do work with the city or through a contract with the city, you have to go through a clearance process through which we make sure that you're up to date on any accounts receivable, so any bills or invoices that you owe to the city that you've paid them, and you don't have any income tax compliance issues, and so the general trend has been a large growth in the number of clearance applications that we're seeing. So ultimately, the takeaway is the budget that you have in front of you at least for Treasury's helping fund many of these activities that we need to do on a routine basis. Thank you.

Next would be Albert Warren's discussion of the assessor's office.

Thank you to the chair. I'm Alvin horn, Deputy CFO and the microphone is can you hear me now? It's up. Thank you through the Chair. I'm Alvin horn, Deputy CFO and assessor for the city of Detroit. What you see before you on the screen, it talks about the hope applications at the see that the assessor's office processes on behalf of the Detroit board review that number has stabilized as you can see, but it has increased over the last several years. And we expect that increase to continue short term. And in accordance with the property tax reform ordinance, which was passed late last year. We're looking to automate that process and we've taken steps to do that to allow applicants to file online to submit your information online. And as much as possible once the board review has made the decision to receive the decisions online. So we're trying to take the manual processes out of the process. And we're also trying to make it as convenient as we can. But the applicants working on for community partners in Detroit board review. The number of appeals to have that both the Barstow review and the assessor's office has seen declined slightly this year. But over the last three years this there has been an increase. For the most part at the assessor's review we make every attempt to settle the appeal without going to the March board review. And we've been fairly successful at that. But a little over 1200 appeals a year do go forward to March board review. Our job our responsibility under both see ordinates in the state and state law is to support the efforts of the chart board review, particularly during the March board review. Our staff conducts field reviews on behalf of the board review. We answer questions provide provider advice to the board to Detroit board review on the valuation process we expect the number of appeals to level out somewhat to the number that they've that you've seen over the last three years were finalized in the current years. The numbers are consistent for 24 as they have been for the last two years. We will have the final numbers tabulate by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. So if there are any specific questions, I'm happy to address them. Thank you Thank you

are the chair I'm Tony certainly met from the opposite contract and procurement on behalf of our chief procurement officer Sandra Starr who couldn't be here with you today. The Office of contract and procurement. We are helping the various departments and vendors with the increase in the city activities that we have. Also this slide kind of shows you our contracting efforts in fiscal year 23. You'll see the number of RX 5968. And then in fiscal year 24 was projected. The difference here, you'll see is driven by in fiscal year 23. There were more emergency demolitions and we're not having that. And the increase is because of the ARPA funding that we have had in the office, the contract and procurement we have been working with councilmember Durvasa office on some efforts to streamline our contracting process. You'll see over to the side where it says 2000 to 25, which is our current thresholds that we have there 600 And a year, total 7 million. We're trying to streamline it to the area of the 25k to increase that to 125 $300 a year, total 20 million. So if we could increase that threshold, we will have more efficiencies, we would be able to have more small and micro businesses have an opportunity to get some of these larger contracts. So that's one of the pushes that the offset contract and procurement will have the next slide the next slide just kind of talks about some of our outreach accomplishments, and the office of contract procurement. We work with many of you to do our outreach and we're really excited to continue working with each of your offices. So you'll see in fiscal year 23, and to date that we have provided 664 million awarded contracts to Detroit based businesses as a result of our outreaches 492 million to Detroit headquarter businesses to 20. Order to MBE which is minority business enterprise businesses 226 awarded to Detroit small business in Detroit micro businesses on our outreaches we've had 3000 outreaches and 10 plus outreach events. So we have a number of new contractors that have been doing business with us as a result of their outreach with our joint efforts. There's 393 New registered vendors in the last 12 months and then you'll see that 160 contracts have been awarded to new vendors as a result of our outreaches. And so we're really excited that we've been working with each of you, and we look to continue to increase our outreach efforts and get new contractors on these various activities. That is it for me.

Thank you, the chair. With that. That's a short presentation we'd be welcome questions and an opportunity to talk about the department.

All right, thank you so much for the presentation and we will begin with questions. First congratulation on the investment upgrade status. I wish I could have been here. I was here during the budget hearings. But great news for the city of Detroit. I think it speaks to all of our collaborative work to ensure that we're passing a fiscally sound budget every year. So thank you, Mr. Horne. My question is really just around capacity. From the assessments port for the assessor's office. I know during the discussions when we passed the property tax reform ordinances came up numerous times about sufficient capacity and staffing for the assessor's office. And quite frankly, I think you even admitted several times that you don't necessarily have the capacity and the staffing that you necessarily need as well. So I'm glad to see five additional people added to the office, but it seems like it's more so for the process of simplifying the property tax bills, not necessarily the investigation of appeals, etc of that sort. So can you just speak to the overall capacity to address the numerous appeals and just needs of property taxes here in the city of Detroit within within the Office

of duty Chair? Thank you for the question, man president. Just like every agency in the city of Detroit, we would love to have more than we have. But this has been a continuous conversation with both the chief deputy Tanya Stottlemyre and with the CFO of the minimum required staffing requirements to do to perform the duties that are assigned to us. I believe this will get us where we need to be we've been able to meet the council's requirements for 20 to review 20% of our residential properties every year, and we've been successful the last three years, we've been able to provide support to Detroit board review. We've been able to do the field visits that are necessary during the appeals season. Certainly as our staff is stressed. We develop our processes we've used we've we use technologies whenever possible. Several years ago, counsel allowed us to start using aerial imagery as part of our desktop review process. So we will continue to train staff will continue to invest in technology and we will continue to have conversations with the CFO and the chief deputy when we do feel a need to increase our total complement. But I do believe we have the the appraisers, the analysts and the clerical support to perform the duties that the Office of the assessor is required to perform. Thank you now Okay,

so the five additional people are they appraisers clerical or analysis what what positions are those five additional people that we actually had into your office?

It is a mix of appraisers, appraisers than now as an analyst now analysis

Okay. In three of those positions will be temporary. I'm looking at the cost here where it says Property Assessment and tax administration improvements one time for $1.2 million, three FTEs are being proposed. So,

Madam President, I can address that question. So yes, there are three positions that right now are only in the budget on a temporary basis. They are TAS positions. If there is a need for us to incorporate those positions going forward, we will be able to do that. But right now they are just positions exclusively for that purpose. But if we need to broaden their scope, we can do that. And if we need to retain them, then we can also do that as well. But I also want to point out that of the current budget of 67 positions, they're not all filled. So we're actively recruiting for his vacant positions as well. So right now, he's not working with a full complement of staff. So we're working on getting him to his full complement of 67 positions. And then there'll be the five additional positions added to the 25 budget. Thank you.

And then Mr. Rising, can you provide an update? I know we approved I think $6 million last budget for the effective homeowners program and I've been working with Mr. Bowser and administration tried to get that rolled out. Can you speak to where the funds roll over for this fiscal year as anything additional that needs to be added and where we stand with that particular amount

that was understanding there has been there were challenges I'm sure you will understand that from Mr. Balzers conversations. He has developed now staff in place to deal with this relationships and contractual agreements with the land bank as well as more city match for the programs related to them, which were benefits of that. And we are will make sure that the whatever it's needed to roll over that $6 million can roll over as of time he has not indicated that he needs additional funding. So but we would come back to you if we did. Okay. All right.

Thank you. I do have additional questions. We will submit those in writing in go to questions from my colleagues. I'll start with councilmember Callaway.

Thank you Madam Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. I have a list of questions that I'll make sure you get them in writing. But please determine the amount of lost revenue. If the city Detroit reduced its operation mail millage by one, one meal when additional mail

so we have about 19.5 mils because it was rolled back a number of years ago by Headley. We have revenues of $150 million so it's a little less than 10 $10 million a mil

because I know we reduced it by one mil last year, I think was July of 2023. That's right. And I think I heard the mayor last week or on March the seventh, we reduced that another meal. If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty mistaken. But that will

be for the levy this year. And what we proposed in the next budget hearing and non departmental budget we'll discuss this is that we propose to reduce another mill of the dead millage down to seven mils. And that's really because it gives gifts conversation and again, the values of the properties specifically increased. In the last two years this has allowed us to collect for fewer Mills not necessarily for upward at surface needs.

Okay? Um, thank you for that. And I'm looking forward to the even more reductions in our millage. Gotta save save us some what we're spending in property taxes even though our property values are going up, which is not a bad thing for some of us. How does the city of Detroit how does the city of Detroit revenues benefit from large concerts and sporting events? And can this amount be reasonably reasonably calculated? And I say that because I am supporting an amusement tax and I know that it will it benefits other municipalities across the country. We have all these large concert venues, entertainment venues, and I don't believe that we're getting our fair share of what they're bringing in and what the artists who are coming in to perform like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and they may even even with the NFL. You know, I just don't believe that we are getting our fair share and I could be wrong. But that's just from my perspective as a taxpayer lifelong Detroit are still living in the city now while working for the city. And that's a whole nother conversation about, you know, those who work in the city but don't live here. So can you answer that question for me?

I can take a shot that through the chair. The as you know, there's many ancillary spin on benefits of economic activity in the city. We don't have the sales steps or amusement tax or any type of use tax. So we don't really benefit directly from the ticket sales to these events. The state doesn't either because it doesn't have a use tax on these ticket sales. There is a special assessment that hotels put upon themselves with help market in the city. So indirectly, there's some special assessment from the hotel rooms that comes in to the convention bureau. And they're able to then use that to help spur additional events into the city. It does produce jobs in that as as people coming downtown there's more events more activity in this town is more commercial activity, needing jobs so that that's a direct benefit and we get income tax from that. We should be receiving the income tax of people who work in the city when they work in the city. So Beyonce is performing in the city and making Lena Z she also stacks on the on that part of her compensation. I'm not sure that we have access to the information in terms of what to be honest he paid her tax or not.

And if she did, we should also be looking to tax to our players. Our sports teams pay their income taxes when they work in the city. That's great. So we can get there so we can probably get Taylor Swift and Bianca.

you'd raise Beyonce. I think we should get them all.

Um, yeah, we should get them all and that's revenue for the city. So you know I have a list of other questions. And then as council president said in the others, congratulations on our investment grade being increased as a major achievement. I was glad that I had an opportunity to attend that press conference. And so I had a more questions but I am looking forward to how we can move forward with that amusement tax and also you know, reducing the millage. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Rising to your team. All right. Thank

you member Callaway member waters.

Thank you, Madam President. So good afternoon. Afternoon ZombiU.

Anyway, all right. So um,

my first question just goes to accountability how this all CFO incorporate data analytics and performance metrics into his budgetary strategies in order to enhance decision making and accountability.

It's actually a question as part of what we've been awarded the award for, for budgeting activities on let's see blessedness answer that

through the president to you remember waters thank you for that question. So as we put together a budget every year, you know, we work with closely with our city departments. And you'll see in the departmental chapters in the budget book, you know, their strategic priorities, as well as key metrics measuring their progress towards those priorities. And so some departments the measures are a little more mature than others, but everyone has been participating in this process so that as we make budget decisions, make recommendations to the mayor make recommendations to the council. It's based on programs that are working and are making measurable progress towards our goals. And certainly, you're seeing a lot of the same kind of activity in that space happening with the ARPA programs and the Treasury reports to the federal government. Again, one of the biggest parts of the OCS OCFS mission is making sure we're incorporating data into all of our work, whether it be financial data, operational data, economic data, big push we've made over recent years, as well as for our revenue forecast, incorporating a better understanding of the local economy, and making sure we really understand what's moving employment and wages here in the city of Detroit and helping to drive some of the strategies here in the city so we can grow our revenues.

And let me just say thank you for always being amenable to coming out, helping us out explaining the budget. Thank you. My pleasure. My next question actually goes to minority businesses frankly, I'm everybody knows a passion three of us are co chairs of the minority business Task Force. Me and Callaway and Johnson. And so we push the summit, the annual Minority Business Summit each year, trying to break and bringing in our partners from state of Michigan, Wayne County, Oakland County, including all of those folks, and we do workshops, and I'm so very thankful to have one of the employees from OCP Sierra who, oftentimes out volunteers her time on Saturdays to help us educate people in terms of how to complete that process. A lot of people are intimidated by the process. They're like, Oh, this oracle is so overwhelming. And so I have been in some conversations with with the director saw about exactly what she mentioned about remember Daryl hall and I didn't know we were both working on it. But streamlining that process. Trying to make sure that more people have an opportunity to do business with the city. And I've got to tell you guys, I mean, it's tough. For those of us who sitting here at the table. Oftentimes in the community, people are saying, you know, I can't get into business. I feel left out all of those kinds of things. That's, I mean, those are the kind of things we have to hear constantly. So, um, we've got to do more. You know, I get tired of sitting here approving contracts. They're not Detroit headquartered or based I do so I want you to talk about just a little bit more. When that's going to change don't just tell me that it's happening. When is it going to happen? When are we going to be able to bring in more minority contractors? Specifically, what is it that that we are doing? I mean, I want some simple things that the average community can understand you know, I don't want to talk over their head you got you know, you guys a numbers person, but that break it down so they can understand because they are waiting there and they want answers from us. Right?

Through the Chair. I think it's the most important thing I think OCP can do every year. But it's beyond OCP sometimes, and that's why we really appreciate Council's help and our opportunities to speak at your meetings for this. We have to both make sure people know the opportunities. We have to make sure that they understand how to do it, because it's not a simple process all the time. And sometimes the bureaucracy of this city drives them away because they think it's gonna be too hard to build so it'd be too hard so we have to make that simpler as we can. Then we have to provide some incentive. Into the departments to go recruit minority contractors for their projects. And one of the ways that stall is going to recommend is that in the procurement reform rental ordinance, this suggests that if you have minority contractors, not that I'm saying that the process going through counselors is too onerous, those lengthy you'll be able to have a higher threshold to avoid that longer process if you're HIPAA moving the contractor so put some incentive in the departments to be able to say, hey, I need me country quicker if I can find the minority contractor prior to this contract, I'm gonna get a contract. I think there's just needs to be incentives on all sides of this same on both the public to come in on the department to figure out how the other bill and crew contractors better as well as on the departments themselves. To find the miry contractors where the work gets is going to be it's going to help you get your work done quicker. Miss LeMat

out through the Chair, I want to say one of the things that OCP has implemented as we have upgraded our website. So we have the videos on there. And it actually walks people through step by step of how to register how to invoice. In addition, we have some standing team meetings so that our E procurement specialists are always available every Monday every Wednesday every Friday at the same time and people can just drop in. We also have office hours with Sierra, thank you for that fear. Appreciate that. But another thing that we have done is like this weekend, we're trying to go out to the community and so we're looking for the events that a lot of people go to and we're coming to those events. So Black tech, Saturdays is one that has been in existence and they typically have about 300 people that attend and we partnered with them and we brought our Department of innovation team with with us. We had 1000 people registered and we were able to walk them through how to do business with the city of Detroit, tell them about not only contracts for it, but we talked about all of the available opportunities that are available now and that are coming for the future so that they can have access to do business with the city of Detroit. So it's things like that, that we're continuously trying to do well, we're going to those events that are already out there, not just the regular outreaches because they may not hear about them. But we're going into the community to find the things that they're already doing so that we can teach them how to do business with the city of Detroit. And so I think the more that we do those in the community will increase those opportunities for those that have never had the opportunity. Okay.

All right. And thank you. Thank you so much for all of that. Thank you Madam President.

Thank you member waters member Young.

Thank you, Madam President. Good to see everybody always a pleasure to work with you. I just want to ask you something. First and foremost, when I talked to senior citizens, what was your job? Steve said, Well, I talked to our retirees excuse me, I'm sorry, I spoke here myself. You know, if it's a minor offense, I'm not trying to start distinguished community. But when I talk to our retirees in general retirement, one of the things they talk about is restoring their cola and also restoring the cuts that they have made, particularly the clawback in their pensions. I just wanted to know, has there been an analysis of how much that would costs? And has there been an analysis of how much that will cost in revenue state Correct? Or if

revenues change, because even though I'm not hoping for this, I don't think it's gonna happen, but there is the bond curve is inverted. Usually when that happens, that means a recession is on the rise. So has there has those changes in the pension bid analyzed how much it would cost at the revenue stay current now, and what happens if we were entering into a recession with those costs to the chair I will s address this this is part of our non departmental presentation also. Budget as part of the budget is I pause I've got ahead of myself here. No, that's quite all right. So through the chair to member young. So as the council is well aware, our first priority as we've been planning and funding pensions here, through the city's budget has been to make sure we've set aside enough funding to pay the obligations that currently exist after the bankruptcy. And this budget, there's $170 million towards the annual legacy pension contributions for the current frozen benefits. And there's we'll talk a little bit more later. We do have some modest proposals to provide additional relief to retirees. I don't have the exact figures in front of me for what cola restorations or reversing the cuts would cost but I know that it would be extremely costly to the budget, adding to those liabilities and pushing up that annual required contributions. We could work with the actuaries to have the exact figures. But but one of the things we are looking at with respect to the annuity savings, clawbacks is bringing back the option for retirees to prepare at a discount to end that clawback. That was an option that was offered at the time of the bankruptcy as a one time offer that then closed you know, since it would be actuarially neutral, there's in my opinion, no reason to not make that an open offer. It would just be something that the retirement system would have to administer. And we'd still have to go back to the bankruptcy court to make that modification. But it's one that we're certainly willing to propose to you and provide, you know, maybe not a full reversal of what was done but an option to essentially buy your way out. And then also include the 30 check, as well. I mean, I think that's something that a lot of people will talk about, not just the general timing, but also within our police and fire and I said on that picture board, I think that's something worth your time. But I think that's something that I would just like to see as well. I'm not saying I'm opposed to it. I just think that's something I would like to see someone on going out there talking to my constituents, I could tell them what this is and what it costs and how we would go about doing it more detailed fashion. I see the chair remember young so so yeah, so part of our proposal in this budget is provide $10 million dollars towards a prorated 13th Check. And so of course what we mean by that is basically taking the existing monthly pension check retiree gets and then giving them a percentage of that as an extra check. Likely at the end of the calendar year. Again, it would take bankruptcy court approval to make those changes. But again, you know, one kind of first step in providing additional relief to our retirees now that we're 10 years past the bankruptcy. Again, it wouldn't add any permanent liability liabilities to the city. But it would be something that at the budget time every year, the city could make a choice about funding an additional benefit. To provide something more for the retirees. Thank you. Then my my final question I want to ask you is this is a little bit different. But I think that and I think the title for this is stratification economics. And basically what I'm tell you kind of rejects the notion that you just build human capital in order to close racial wealth. gaps that it also talks about discrimination and things within our economic system. And what I mean by that is how the racial wealth gap affects the budget. I don't want to get too far into the call it clear metrics, it's about history and economics. I don't want to go too far on that. But I think that it's important that we start tracking things and I'm gonna throw a couple of buttons out here just to kind of illustrate my point. And you can tell me if it's something that you can do or you want to do and if not, what you would need if you even want to engage in this but there was a statistic that showed me that the nationally that the African American unemployment cost the country $50 billion a year, that nationally the wealth gap costs the country we have lost $70 trillion over the last 20 years based on the racial wealth gap. Statistics is shown for every percentage the suit every every percentage, every every percentage, the unemployment rate rises 40,000 People die. Okay, um, there was another as I saw in CNBC, that said that for every time a plant closes, opioid use rise by 80%. And the reason why I'm saying this is because I think that it's important for us to be able when we're talking, we're having discussions about economic policy, and tax policy. I think it's important for us to let people know there's human lives behind that and what the impact is. And we're not, when we're talking about these developments. We're talking about this investment. We're not just making investments just for investment sake. We're making these advances because there's real people's lives behind them, and the consequences of what happened if we don't, and how that impacts people. So I was wondering Is that something that your office will be capable of? Does the budget address that would you need to hire or that maybe that might be better contracted service out? I don't know. But would it be better if we, if we could do that here where you need an FTE or more money in the budget to address that or is that something that you just don't think the city should be involved in for whatever reason? Just, if you can appreciate it. You say want to take it first? As Mr. Watson comment also, I think what you're raising is something that we follow pretty closely as we develop the budget, as well as we develop policy for where we should be investing city funds. Okay. That was what we if we look every year, and a chart that the RSP and the consortium of University economist shows us the differential between resident wages and income, household income and payroll meaning resident and non resident anyone who works in the city payroll, average annual wages are twice as much as this is the President's wages. So we know there's this this gap caused a lot according to them by educational attainment and professional skill sets. So for our poor for example, we tried to invest a lot of the money into things which will provide some some additional support, through education, through job training, through housing, those things which are social determinants of, of income, and so we do pay attention to this we do use RFQ eat it's gonna give us some advice about both little revenue projection side as well as on figuring out where as a policy matter, where should the investments be, because if we increase resident income, the financial stability of the cities is much improved, right? I just want to say I read that in your report, I noticed that you're talking about going for 37,000 to 50,000 feet by 2029 or something like that. So I don't know. That part. I'll talk about divide. I think what I'm asking for is it I appreciate that and I read it, I think what I'm gonna ask you for just a little bit more probably just in terms of the racial wealth gap side, maybe more in terms of how we got here, and maybe more towards the impact. I think what I'm asking for is a little bit more in terms of the impact of black unemployment, but black male black, female unemployment, and how that impacts the budget. Particularly, and why when we're doing certain things. What you because easier for me to be able to explain why there's certain investments that we make in certain You're me because I'm trying to address this one. So I'll probably send you some more information. I'll talk to you that but not both apart. You talked about you do do well and I read your reports and I appreciate your work. Thank you. Thank you mana price. And I'm done.

Thank you remember young Council Member Santiago rimuru.

Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the work that you do. I will focus my first question on asking if anyone feels comfortable and ready to explain what Lean does. I love lean? I think they do great work. I think it's it's really progressive of us practice of us to have a lean team. But we're gonna talk about about it enough. I don't think people talk about what they do and how to utilize it. I know our office has, and we're excited to share later what we were doing, but it's one we can please explain what the lien team does and how they really help our processes and procedures here in the city.

So through the chair to member Santiago Romero. What lien does is not only process improvement, but they've kind of evolved into doing a lot of project management as well. So right now, the way we've been using Lean is to kind of troubleshoot, you know, certain projects may come up that we think will have a short window to solve. And the lean team will be the ones that will go in and quickly you know, assess the problem. And determine you know, what processes need to change in order for us to correct the problem. So right now, that's how we've been using lean. So, you know, typically they may get, you know, dozens of projects every year. Some of them are more long term than others, but a lot of their projects are short term projects where they're just going in solving a problem showing the team how to continue to execute the whole solutions, and then they move on to the next one. So that's how we've been using

the cherry picker dad. The other half of what they do is they train departments. So we have a whole team of people that every week at the mayor's cabinet meetings will have someone come in and say this was my main project to get my green belt. This is what I had to do this is I cut the time of response down from you know, 30 minutes down to two minutes. I mean, everything which is really forward facing oftentimes, because people pick their own lean projects in the departments and a lot of them are saying, I deal with the public. I know how the public, you know, where the irritations are and where the hang ups are. I want to work on fixing that. So we assign a lean team member and say here's a project we're going to work for a couple months together, using the best strategies we can to figure out how to do that the show, and then they come in and show their success. So it's important as it is to get involved in projects as a project as a lean team member. It's equally important to train the greenbelts all over the city so they can do it themselves through

the Chair. Thank you.

I agree. Jewellery. His clan recently went through their program to see how to simplify our processes in our office how to respond faster to our residents as well. And we have our own landing page. Now we are keeping track of everything that comes in through our office, we are evaluating our service to be better to be more effective, effective. And I have a lot of thoughts about how to make this be true across the board that we can talk about after but just excited that you do provide that service. It is important. One motion I'm going to make is that we include into the executive session a conversation around our U Visa process. So that is in motion.

All right, any objections? Hearing none, that action will be taken to be added to our Executive Session. Did you catch that? Mr. Corley? You want to? Yes, I

can. So if there's no objections, I can repeat. The motion is to include the UV sub process into executive session. And I know we're short on time so just want to share a recently read residents reached out because they needed a signature from our police to process a U Visa application. And she told me that she had been waiting for months for a response and one email to me. We got it done in a few weeks. But my concern is that we may have other residents that have may experience violent crime that are now eligible for a visa and that we may not have a process in place. We might we might not I'm not sure but a flag for us to work with DPD on this if needed. So that's a flag for further discussion. That's okay with you Mr. Core leaf if you contact Thank you, Madam President. My next question is a thank you to Mr. Horn. I may have missed this but can you please explain again why you believe the assessment appeals have gone down?

Thank you through the Chair, I believe. Certainly we're still processing the current year, current year numbers, but based on an analysis of 2221 2223 in part the numbers went up in 20.1 and 22 because people were out of work because of the pandemic. So they were very desperate to cut their expenses any way they could. And property taxes are a big part of the average household income. So I believe as we've moved away from the pandemic, people have gone back to work that we've gotten tried to figure out what our new normal looks like. It will same pressures on on both household income so a lot of the people who came in in 22 and 2122 specifically to lower their taxes because they weren't working as many hours or someone someone decided to stay home with the kids for whatever reason they need to lower their expenses. They found property tax appeals.

Understood. Thank you. That's helpful. Thank you. My those are my questions. I only have two other flags to share before I turn it back over one is really looking forward to a process improvement when it comes to procurements. I recently had a few directors in my office who were falling through my chairs. I've had been asking for new chairs since a very since I got here in my first year still have chairs that are crumbling and we have directors coming in to meet with me. We need some chairs, please. And then the only the only other flag for me this is very personal. But also just wondering with the processes and we can ask this the memo. But I like many of our Detroiters live paycheck to paycheck, and I need all the help that I can get and I applied for any z homestead a few months ago and still haven't heard back. So that's another process question as well. So we'll follow up Mr. Ford. No worries, but that's just if I'm still waiting to hear back maybe other residents are waiting to hear back as well. So just to check for all of us. Thank you Madam President.

Thank you, Council Member member Johnson.

Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for all of the work that you do to keep us on budget and on task. I do want to talk about economic growth. And so during the revenue estimating conference, it was stated that the city's economy is expected to grow through 2028 I think, remember Yun was mentioning this with blue collar, blue collar jobs in construction, manufacturing and transportation. Serving as key drivers. However, it was also indicated that there are there may be some risks relative to higher interest rates that continue to be a little higher, although we're seeing them come down a little bit. Can you all talk about any other associated risks to that and any impacts? Or I'm sorry, any way that the Office of the Chief Financial Officer is mitigating those risks to ensure continued economic growth?

Through the Chair to member Johnson, you know, thanks for that question. Yes, at a revenue estimating conference, we talked about how, you know, the city has enjoyed not only growth before the pandemic, but but since it is well owing to all the investments that had been made here. In the city, whether it be in blue collar jobs, whether it be in new knowledge, economy jobs as well, and we see that growth continuing into the future. One area of risk, as you noted was due to elevated interest rates currently, particularly in the FinTech or financial activities sector. The long term forecast is that that will you know, slip gradually recovers interest rates come down, but you're absolutely right. If if they don't come down as planned or there's some other disruption that gradual job recovery in that sector might take longer, and thus, you know, play some risk on our income tax revenues. But again, some of the ways the city has been mitigating that kind of risk is to continue to diversify the local economy. You know, we're not just an automotive town, we're not just a thin tech town. A lot of those, you know, different industries reacted differently to different different economic changes so that there can be some mitigating factors on both sides. But in addition to that, as Mr. Rising talked about earlier in the presentation, you know, we're continuing to enhance our income tax collection efforts, continue to build up reserves so that should there be any additional disruption in the future beyond our current forecast and growth? You know, we're well positioned to withstand

if I threw the chair if I could promise myself it wouldn't get anything too controversial. So biting my lip but, but one of the things we proposed last year, which is still hasn't come to fruition, was the length of your tax. And that is a mechanism to lower the cost of capital. And what we need is capital investment in the city and make it cheaper for capital investment in the city. And, and hopefully the legislature will see this the same way and give this council opportunity to discuss it further. But I think that type of thing they're going to remember Cal ways point also lowers tax rates on individuals lowers tax rates on capital development. So I make my pitch.

Alright, thank you for that. I'm going to hold off on even responding to that until we get to the non departmental discussion, but I do appreciate where it looks like the city is moving towards more tech jobs. But I also know that there's so many Detroiters that need to be trained in tech for us to really compete in that space. And so I know that do it is focused on doing some different types of training and look forward to really having a robust tech industry here in the city of Detroit. So, thank you all so much for that response. My other question is relative to the Office of contracting and procurement and Deputy Director limit, I'm not sure if you can answer this or if you can just follow up with me. So on page B 23, Dash 10. Under the office of contracting and procurement, there's a funding decrease of about $250,000. It looks like funding is being shifted from procurement to the compliance and audit division. I'm just interested in how that shift will increase the efficiencies within the Office of contracting and procurement

through the chair

which which pays to be

23 Dash 10.

So through the chair. I do know about the decrease in with the restructuring. I do believe that when we change or potentially, if it's approved, change the thresholds that will help us out so that we can make sure that we are still compliant. And we are making sure that we get our contracts done at a faster pace. So even though it's it's shifting the restructuring, when we change the threshold, this our staff will be able to be reduced and still be able to meet all of the compliances in a timely fashion as far as contracting so that's what that is, if we could get that approved. Just fine.

Got it. Got it. You all are being very optimistic. Okay. Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, member Johnson. Member Doha.

Thank you, Madam President. And good afternoon to you. Let me give credit where credit is due, no pun intended, but just very glad to be at the press conference. And just have, you know, the opportunity to witness that coming from the legislature where no one at the time of this bankruptcy believed that Detroit will be able to rebound like the way it has and as fast as it has. It is just optimistic of what the future can look like, particularly if we continue to have the correct leadership to move that forward. So I do want to thank you though, for some of your all of your department just to be honest, on having that vision to move it forward. And just speaking at the conference, we were talking about the black ink. I think people don't know how significant really that is we can meet our obligations now and that's why we can do some of the things that we're able to do. And so my question is going to revolve around revenue collections. Obviously, we saw a reduction of about 121,000 and the reduction of three FTE is can we talk about that a little bit and how or if there will be any impact on the city's ability to maximize revenue collection and what measures are in place to mitigate any possible negative effects

so through the chair to member draw, I'm happy to kick it off and then hand it off to treasurer Nikhil Patel to to add a little additional detail, so that just represents is just a movement of staff around within Treasury for the most part, you know, moving staff across different cost centers in different parts of the operation just to maximize not only our ability to collect on revenues, but also the way that we go about doing that but I'll ask treasurer Patel to add a little more detail. Thank you

before I speak, I saw Tanya you turn on your mic, you might want to make a comment first,

through the chair to remember their halls. So what Nikhil has been able to do in his department is actually do a lot of what Sandra is also doing kind of determining, like what which positions are vital, and which positions need to be upgraded. And what they both have done is that they've discovered that there's some positions that have been vacant for a long time that they don't need to fill. And then there are other positions that they actually need to be paying higher salaries for so they're both kind of doing those types of reorganizing and restructuring within their divisions and McHale I'll let you I just wanted to make sure

I do the chair. Do council member Dr. Hall, I think to double down on what Tanya just said is our team is structured now in a way to optimize what they're really good at doing. I have a phenomenal team and my revenue collections team and our cash management team. And now they've we've had the right people in the right seats to go do that work. And so, now we have eliminated some of the process friction points of getting these invoices and these bills out, working with our vendors to do that in a more efficient way. And then using data from Oracle from our state partners to try to tie things together and make sure people are paying their bills. On the flip side there's another mechanism to also increase revenue collections, which is on our clearance site. And so we used to see at least six seven months ago a big delay from when someone applied for a clearance and then it took a long time to get process go through the OCP process. And we've made some structural changes to the process where the AR is being collected efficiently, and the income tax piece also gets collected and so I'll speak about the income tax clearance please, very quickly. If someone owes something outstanding, we don't give them a clearance on their income tax unless they provide us proof that they've sent in the check or filed what they needed to file to the state. And before we until we get that we don't process their clearance. So it's those mechanisms that we've shifted to increase collection and it's just increasing our operating leverage.

And I'm glad to hear that you know, relative to efficiency obviously, you know, I won't pull your leg you guys help write the budget so you know your staffing needs and I won't try to push you to take any more money or add any more people if you don't feel it's necessary. But just was curious about that because obviously revenue collection is huge. When we talk about our budget my second question just revolves around our credit rating, as as I mentioned, you know, we're in investment grade now, but we can go higher. So what are some of the specific strategic thoughts or visions that we have to continue on this path that we are on within the next upcoming fiscal years noting that I'm sure CFO rising, rising is always looking towards the future, hopefully.

The chair the nice thing about the rating agencies is they tell you what you can do to help yourself and tell you what you're gonna do wrong to hurt yourself. Some of it is not beyond our control, but more long term. Some of it is the as we've talked about today already, the personal income of residence of the city. That is a that is a longer term objective and it's something we had one that we've struggled with rating agencies for it since I've been here and the danger against our credit, they give us a scorecard or credits. And all these factors they consider where we're even up to triple A in some of these factors. We're a rated credits, but our economics in the city still is in terms of personal income. Yeah, it's been it's been a drag. So I think there's been an effort to job training to making sure that people have opportunities have jobs, create a movement creating new efforts will run construction. Businesses come to the city putting set asides for it zip city employment, city residents, things to make sure that employment some of this argument to them is we really are regional economy now half the residents of the city work outside the city. It was a surprise to me that I saw that. So we're really affected by regional economy, not just the city's economy. So as the regional economy goes somewhat the city of Detroit goes and so that's important understand, you know, and so we really need to kind of dulled the education attainment, skill sets of other residents be able to improve the city and the others. The other is just keep doing what we're doing is keep our head down, hit the ball down the fairway, you know, increase this muscle memory I call it so that so that when we're all gone, the city operates the same way. And that's what they want to see, do we have institutionalized practices that we that we just don't look up and, and take our eyes off the idea that we have to have rigid institutional controls and we need to spend what we make every year, not just keep spent spending way beyond our means.

And thank you. I appreciate that. I think you're speaking more sir to the culture. I think that has again been a big shift to help us change around and become more fiscally responsible, have a higher level of self determination relative to our finances here in the city of Detroit. So glad to hear. Last but not least, I'd just be remiss if I didn't thank Deputy Director limit as well as director stall who's been working really closely with my staff on those procurement ordinances or the or the procurement ordinance. Excuse me. Trying to help streamline that process here in the city of Detroit which will allow for better efficiency within the departments will allow for some of my colleagues maybe even get a chair that is not falling apart, or a couch that they ordered at the beginning of session. And it's a members waters point who's interested in that as well. I am optimistic that we will be able to get that passed through through to this council to improve our processes when we even folks are coming to us talking about reprogramming ARPA dollars. We've got a four to six month procurement process. And we've got a hard deadline coming in December. So that makes it very difficult to shift funds around. And I believe if we had a better procurement process, and that's not on the people with just the process, that we can move our city forward a lot faster as they're doing other bigger cities and municipalities. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you remember Dr. Hall. All right, gents. Mr. Corley.

The man is here. So, of course great news to hear from Moody's. We also use standards and pores as a great agency are we hearing any indication from standards and pores to also give us an investment grade rating?

Thank you for the question to the chair. We have gone through discussion on standard reports last week. We're returning questions a follow up questions they've had today. Did them we expect to hear for them? I would think in the next week, hopefully with the same

result. Right. Right. And just one more quick one. So last year Council put $85,000 in the Property Valuation area in assessors to help provide more staff on for the board review and just want to get a quick update on that process.

To the chair to Mr. Corley. So the personnel requisition for that position has been approved and but we are still actively recruiting for it so it hasn't been filled yet but we do have a personnel requisition out for it.

All right. All right. Thank

you for those responses. And yes, member Yeah.

Oh, I have a question. I just I just have a quick statement. I just want to say congratulations on winning the award for budget presentation and don't have a nine years balanced budgets. I just wanna say congratulations to you, and I appreciate you bringing the land value tax sir.

No, he was not gonna like that. I do sir. Know that. Yes, member Johnson. Thank you, Madam

President. I didn't want that to be the last word. So member waters talked about the minority businesses that we've all been working on, really trying to develop a better relationship within the city of Detroit. So I'd like to make a motion to add to executive session to create a program to develop minority contractors or minority businesses.

All right. Any objections? Hearing none, that will be added to our executive session. And member Callaway.

Um, thank you, Madam President. I just it's a quick question, but I know I'm gonna ask for something. I'm gonna make a motion for something to go into Executive Session. Just kind of want to get back there. Back to the $20 million that I know when I attended the press conference, the reporter asked about a $20 million that hadn't been encumbered slash earmark of Arper dollars. So I think I heard you mentioned it but yeah, because District Two could use about three of those millions because let me tell you how I'm feeling as a council person. I just don't think we have a whole lot of say so and how these dollars have been encumbered. Now. They come to us for approval. But I know that those buckets were set up in 2020 21 way before I got here, but there has to be more flexibility because we know what we need in our districts, you guys know, we actually know we are boots on the ground. So we are the ears and the eyes of our community. So I need about three to $5 million for district to one of the larger districts in the city. We're suffering on the avenue of fashion. We're suffering a lot of my business owners, we need help with property taxes. So I'm not you know, going into a whole nother conversation but you brought up the 20 million and I bet reporter asked you and I think you said it was not I don't know if it had not been encumbered or promised but it needed to come before council so I'm feeling a certain kind of way about approving all of the requests that you all bring in and we have requests. We're not really getting it as much I'm learning. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay, member Callaway.

I could clarify. I'm sorry if it was very clear before. So as you stated counsel when Harper was first proposed and the money came to us set up a buck 15 buckets or 15 appropriations Barbra was fairly specific purposes or 14 was always envisioned that there's some latitude within each one of the appropriations but if we weren't able to find a project within our preparation, we could come back to council and seek to transfer that money to a different preparation. We did that last year as you remember. Taking some money. There's some let there's some funds, which we've felt like are more important to be spent on housing purposes. A downpayment assistance program, three affordable housing programs, the continued support for the the Detroit Housing Services Unit. Those type of programs we will have been developing for the last six eight months, sitting out nofas looking for proposals back from how affordable housing programs developing this downpayment assistance program which has been successful beyond our expectations and setting up the Detroit Housing Services Unit. We will seek to come back to council to transfer money from the digital provide bucket into the preparation for various housing programs to be able to help on these housing developments and there I think important, affordable housing projects, important downpayment assistant programs and important housing services unit that is helping helping hundreds of people every week. So we will be seeking that.

No Madam Chair. Can we move that $20 million of ARPA into executive session because of that, we may not want that that's what you that's what you want, but that may not be what we love. We know we need housing but we need other things in our district that that that that are more impactful and understand about the halls. We got a lot of money for floating around. So I'd like to see the $20 million go into Executive Session match you

most definitely member Kelly, I'm glad you mentioned that in is the attempt to bring that before us as we approve the budget similar to last year when we took up both at the same time so that we can have some say so and what we want to see

the chair because this is so project specific, the approach. We were proposing to bring this to you as the projects were ready to go and not transferred to someplace we couldn't use it. The project doesn't isn't doesn't get to fruition. I believe they all will but we will propose to bring in when we bring the contracts.

So we'll move into executive session but it'd be helpful at least to have what the projects are as we are deliberating the budget so that we can at least see the whole picture. And then we can have more discussion as we move forward. Similar to what we did last year, but we actually approved it at the same time. Okay, all right. So there's no objections, we will send that as well to our Executive Session. All right, thank you remember Callaway All right, that will conclude the CFOs budget hearing. And we will proceed now and I think you're gonna stay Mr. Rising for non departmental Yeah,

okay. We'll do a backup for that. Okay. Perfect.

Start.

Way better.

Right and whenever you are prepared to begin Mr. Nag lick, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Watson is going to start on non departmental and then pass the baton to me as we roll through.

Okay. So Watson,

thank you, Mr. nagrik. Thank you, Madam President. So we're here today to talk about the non departmental capital debt services, Legacy pension departments. These are departments 18 and 35. And the budget book, what these represent is two central budgets for our overall long term obligations around debt and pensions, as well as various centralized costs in the budget, as well as a number of houses a number of agency budgets that have had separate budget hearings such as earlier today. We had media services, the board of ethics board of police commissioners and the like. So the non departmental budget includes again, so department 18 department 35. The debt service and legacy pension department includes revenues and resources that include the use of our retiree Protection Fund, which we talked about a little bit in the previous hearing as well and we'll cover more in the coming slides. The $18.7 million that we receive every year for the next 10 years from the foundation for Detroit's future and the Detroit Institute of Arts towards our legacy pension contributions from the Grand Bargain, as well as a $66 million from our property tax debt millage as well as other debt millage. Restricted resources. department 35 non departmental, this is where the lion's share of all of our major tax revenues lives in the budget if you're looking for him, there's a little bit in the police department as well just due to statutory restrictions around income tax and utility users tax but over a billion dollars of revenues are reported in the non departmental budget because ultimately they help fund the various other city departments as well. We also include here the budgeted use of prior year surplus proposed in this budget $73 million. There's cable franchise fees and peg fees at $7 million and a variety of other revenues coming in at 5 million for a total revenue and resource base in the non departmental budget of about $1.2 billion. And so, what gets spent out of the non departmental and debt service budget so department 18 On the left side, again, you've got the legacy pension annual required contribution that we were talking about earlier. 100 and $70 million going towards paying down are legacy pensions over the next 30 years. $10 million at one time funds for a proposed prorated 13 check which we talked about a little bit during the CFOs hearing. Again, the idea here is on a one time basis every year the city could choose using its general fund provide additional relief to retirees at $10 million. That will be an additional retirement check of somewhere on the order of 20 to 25% of a regular retirement check and what a retiree would get would depend on the size of their current retirement check. So someone who has a relatively smaller pension would get a smaller 13 checks and with a relatively larger one would get a larger one again, it'd be pegged to their existing benefits that they earned while they're here at the city. We also have debt service in this budget. So LT geo debt service, which stands for limited tax General Obligation debt service, which is debt service that's paid back primarily from the city's general fund and UT geo debt service or unlimited tax general obligation bonds which are paid for from our debt millage. And those are voter approved bonds $86 million of LT geo debt service $66 million of UT geo debt service in the budget. department 35 non departmental so you'll see some of these are some familiar areas that we've already covered in previous budget hearings, so I won't spend a lot of time on all of them. The contributions the general fund contributions to DDOT Peoplemover airport, the port authority they live in this part of the budget totaling over $90 million central rent, utilities, insurance and risk management. That's 40, almost $43 million. We've centralized the general funds share of these kinds of costs instead of posing them in all departments just for the ease of administration as well as budgeting and pooling that risk all in one place. various agencies with other budget hearings as well so $26 million. This is border police commissioners board of ethics, the Land Bank Authority, as well as the Media Services Department again, the head on separate budget hearings. $20 million, a one time funds for capital projects, which we'll touch on a little few few slides $10 million for proposed active employee retirement benefit enhancements. So we're looking at a number of ideas we talked about back during the mayor's budget address as well as the retirees Task Force. You know, one idea would be to give employees the option to convert to a defined contribution retirement plan with shorter vesting. As well as we're currently negotiating with the Public Safety unions around modest improvements in the current defined benefit hybrid pension for them. Again, these benefits would have to be negotiated with the various unions. But as the mayor noted in his address, earlier this month, you were putting the money in the budget now so that once we reach an agreement and bring it back before this body, it's already funded and taken care of in the budget. Again, one of the things we were very focused on when it comes to revisiting retirement benefits is before we make any changes that they're fully funded in the budget and that's not the concern. The concern is of course, providing a more competitive retirement benefit for our employees. And then in addition, we have the workforce investments fund seven and a half million dollars in the budget. This is a again a contingency fund in the in the budget as we continue to negotiate collective bargaining agreements. We have money set aside in the budget, to fund whatever will result from those negotiations as HR director Denise Starr talks about her hearing, as I know has come up at the table at many of these hearings. There's a lot of job classifications here at the city where the wages aren't as competitive as we would like them to be. The various civilian negotiate labor contracts expired this year. And then a number of them will also expire. In the year after that and the years that follows I know Mr. Corley has raised at the table as well a number of times that's a big area of risk in the budget and to mitigate that risk. We set aside money in the budget similar to what we did last year so that if and when a decision is made, a deal is reached and a proposal is made to increase wage rates. We have funding set aside for that. That worked really well for us. This past year. We had set aside money in the budget in anticipation of a number of new labor agreements. One of those was the bus driver pay raises that were approved by this body back in January as well as pay raises for EMTs and paramedics and we used this contingency fund to be able to support those increases as well this year. We also have in the budget $3.4 million of the General Fund contribution to the solid waste management fund and DPW. As members of council will recall at the time we were discussing the new trash hauling contracts and the service expansion over the past few months, where we ultimately landed on the approach to funding that cost increase was a combination of a modest fee increase as well as general fund support and that's what you're seeing here in the fiscal 25 budget. Non departmental also houses elected officials compensation, that being of course the members of the council, the clerk and the mayor, Project Clean Slate our expungement program at $1.6 million. The city's share of opioid settlement proceeds, which is an annual stream of funds in fiscal year 25, estimated to come in at $1.2 million, which supports various opioid remediation programs both in HR D as well as the health department that are already underway. And then lastly, a half a million dollars for the goal line program. This past year a council approved an amendment to the goal line contract with the Community Education Commission for an expanded goal line now at two sites and serving 450 kids with after school programming and transportation support. So I know we covered this earlier this month as well but on so I'll be brief, as council will recall, you know working together with the mayor and the CFO. We've prioritized over the last decade setting aside money in a retiree Protection Fund to make sure we can smooth in the budgetary impact of legacy pension contributions which resumed in the current fiscal year we're in now because of building up this trust fund that the fiscal cliff from the pension was not an issue and while the gradual ramp up phasing in the general fund impact of our legacy pension contributions, we've shown this graph before. As you can see, the blue bars are the study ramp up of the legacy pension contributions phasing into our budget over the next decade. All the fiscal year 24 through 28 In this graph are all part of the four year financial plan as well as the supplemental budget request that we submitted to Council yesterday as well as filed with the clerk. The orange bars are the slow phase out of using the retiree Protection Fund. So you can see we've built up a large resource and we're going to use it in the coming years but reduce our reliance on it over time. And with this legacy pension schedule we talked about earlier this month as well. We're going from what last year we presented as a level dollar amortization. And what that kind of big word means is just a flat payment schedule every year kind of like a mortgage where it's the same amount every year for 30 years, instead of that, what we've proposed here is what's called a level principal amortization. And that is where the contributions start higher and then decline over time. Because of the retiree Protection Fund. There is no real impact on the general fund share every year. But what it does is it puts more money in the pension fund faster, where they can now earn a higher return but also provide just greater stability in the funded ratio of the pension plan as we go through this 30 year period of reaching 100% funded status for the legacy pensions for our retirees.

So also sent to council members last night we also filed with the clerk and we also plan to discuss in greater detail during the FNA committee next Wednesday, the fiscal year 24 supplemental budget appropriation resolution and so what we're proposing primarily using prior year surplus as well as surplus revenues in the current year is really shoring up a number of our reserves as well as funding for various capital projects as well as this switch to the legacy pension level principal amortization and that would be funded from the retire Protection Fund. Risk management would get an extra $60 million to address legal liabilities that are expected to come do over the next few years. We did a similar supplement last year, capital projects fund $34 million. This will allow us to move forward with a number of capital projects which I'll touch on on the next slide around ADA accessibility here at the Coleman a young municipal center, city service yard consolidation, various climate resiliency projects, such as the city seawalls in District Four. What we're also going to do with this supplemental is deal with projected overtime and current services hiring trends in the police department that are projected to exceed budget. Again, these amounts are consistent with the increases that are in the department's budgets in fiscal year 25 as well $13 million for the demolition pipeline. That director counts talked about at her hearing that's not covered otherwise by proposal and bonds and ARPA funds. Additional overtime and ambulance expansion for our fire and EMS team as your the fire department talks about they've been able to bring response times down to national record levels thanks to the additional investments we're making here $7.8 million to the solid waste management fund as part of the forecast we reviewed with City Council during the trash hauling contract review. It also included adding money to the fund balance in the solid waste fund this year. So that we can gradually phase in that fee increase so that it doesn't hit residents all at once. As the police department talked about it, they're hearing the Detroit Detention Center which is operated with a contract with state of Michigan Department of Corrections. That cost is increasing. Now that the contract with the state is expiring so as we amended that they're asking for additional funds to keep it running and as the police department talked about they are looking at alternatives so that this escalated cost will continue indefinitely. The law department is also has a number of additional needs around outside counsel legal services contracts. I know many of which have come before Council, and that's what we're projecting here as an additional need. And then lastly, and it is included in the fiscal year 25 budget in the first instance this year but the $350,000 annual contribution from the district Detroit community benefits agreement just needs to the revenue is now forecasted in the budget and just needs to be added as a supplement so it will be available to spend going forward. That will be a routine amount in the budget for from the district Detroit Detroit development. So for capital projects we're really wanting to go over with this slide is so we've been funding and this will be familiar from our capital agenda process as well. So we've been funding capital projects in the city of Detroit, really through, you know, three broad buckets. So there's general fund surplus and general fund budget contributions that goes towards a variety of city capital projects. We also issue bonds and finance capital projects as well. UTG Obama is having to be of course approved by the voters in advance. And then we also use various grants and non general fund sources for capital as well. And so general fund is where we have the most flexibility to fund city capital projects. And so you see here again, a number of priorities for the funding that's both in the supplemental that's been proposed to council as well as in the fiscal year 25. Mayor's budget. Again, ADA accessibility projects, city service yard consolidation, climate resiliency programs such as city seawalls solid waste management for additional trucks for DPW. For the work they continue to do around solid waste management at city facilities and parks. Another $10 million to continue the sidewalk program that we rolled out last year, additional funding for the City Airport as they go through their their modernization and redevelopment program funding for DPD as they stand up this new transit division that they talked about their hearing additional public safety radios, a little bit here for recreation centers, which is otherwise supplemented and number of other areas whether it be bond funding ARPA funds and the like the community land trust that was included in the mayor's budget recommendation at $1.25 million to the Auditor General Office renovations and then $18 million that's still on designated as we've discussed in previous hearings. You know, we've we've discussed collectively a lot of capital needs and other budget priorities over the over recent weeks. I know we will next week as well and this fundings that available for those as we work through the rest of the budget deliberations together. Again on bond financing $22 million to make public lighting improvements that I know PLA talked about during their hearing. We would use transportation bonds bond authorizations for part of the Coolidge project cuja bus terminal project for the portion that's not otherwise covered by grant funds $9 million in recreation bonds for Parks and Recreation improvements, 3 million toward public safety facilities. And then what we're proposing before Council now is a $55 million dollar authorization in vehicle financing called an installment purchase agreement or IPA, the idea there being instead of continuing to basically wait until we have a surplus in order to buy vehicles. This gives us a stable and secure financing mechanism to continue with our vehicle replacement plan over the next couple of years. You can kind of think of it as instead of waiting until we have enough cash in the bank to buy a car we're going to finance it like you know the typical consumer would when they go to the dealership. The grant side this is by far the largest bucket but also the most restrictive. You know DDOT receives every year a substantial sum of state and federal capital grants to invest in bus replacements, new new types of buses, facilities improvements, bus shelters and the like. Over the next few years spending now in prior year balances and expected future allocations they would spend about $288 million DPW spends on roadwork and infrastructure improvements, expected to be about $210 million from prior year balances and future allocations from the state of Michigan $148 million, again of federal grants for DDOT for the Coolidge bus terminal, a very large project and then $14 million and likely more for the City Airport as they continued their redevelopment program. And again, you can see here that the grant funded side is a much narrower set of categories but also a very substantial sum that kind of gives you a sense of you know, as we get restricted funding, we can only use it for specific types of capital projects. With bonds, there's a little more flexibility that will in the case of voter authorized bonds depend on what the voters approve, and then in the case of the general fund was where we have the most flexibility to meet a variety of capital needs for the city. And with that, I'll hand it over to John Nagla to talk a little bit more about our capital program and debt financing.

Thanks a lot, Mr. Watson. I want to start with the slide that Mr. Watson still has up. You've all complimented us on our rating upgrade. One of the things that's very important to rating agencies is that a city is sustainable. And to be sustainable, you have to show that you've got a plan to fund your capital we all saw even though we didn't work here then the city leading up to its financial emergency had police cars in bad repair fire trucks in bad repair city facilities in bad repair. And the city relied on donations and you know, I'm sure really appreciated those philanthropic sources to provide police cars, ambulances, but to a rating agency that's not a sustainable way to run a city. So it's important to have a capital plan that you know where your money is coming from. So focusing on the middle panel, as Mr. Watson indicated, we submitted to the clerk for councils consideration next week, two things and if we go to Slide eight, we submitted one resolution for 31 point 3 million to issue the rest of our ut geo bonds that were private previously voter authorized. Mr. Watson previously mentioned that you TG O stands for unlimited tax general obligation bonds. This is something that occurs in cities and school districts throughout the state of Michigan. Council's authorized or school boards authorize a ballot proposal where the voters get to decide if they want to pay for capital improvements with the debt millage. The voters of the city are the only ones that vote on that, but the duck millage extends to every form of property so it's a way of capturing money from our commercial sector industrial sector. For people that don't live here but get the benefits of the city so the debt millage funding capital to make the city more sustainable is in everyone's interest. So in the state of Michigan, voter authorizations never expire. The city has disclosed in its financial statements each year how much of these prior voter authorizations still exist. We had 46 point 3 million before you know the authorization we've submitted to you 15 million of that has already been authorized previously by counsel. So we need another 31 point 3 million of authorization from counsel to go to the market which would raise the 46 point 3 million that Mr. Watson outlined before in terms of the use of proceeds. And then the other thing he mentioned that we've also submitted to council and it'll be before you next week is to enter into an installment purchase agreement. These as well are widely used in the state of Michigan. And what it allows us to do is to fund capital but as Mr. Watson indicated, much like any of us that lease a car and pay for it over three years, we're spreading that cost over the useful life of the vehicle. So we're asking for authorization to issue 55 million of installment purchase agreements. So on our next slide, we just wanted to show you because we know you've talked a lot about unlimited tax general obligation bonds. We currently have outstanding 554 million of these bonds it's paid for with our debt millage. The chart at the bottom right shows that we maintained for many years in a row the nine mils last year, were able to cut the millage to eight and this year as part of the budget that we've submitted to city council we're asking you to lower it again to seven mils. So we've structured this debt purposely so that we are having less of a burden on the taxpayers over time. So we've got seven mils, proposed in the budget that's before you. The reason we're able to do that one, we've structured our debt to decline over time. The second is as Mr. Rising indicated, as property values rise, there's less that has to be captured from the debt millage because it's allocated over the value of all the properties in the city. Another thing that's helped us greatly is ARPA funding to fund a number of the city's capital needs was certainly something that all of us appreciate it and recognize what President Biden is administration did put that money into our city and because we've had that money, we've not needed to ask you to go back to the voters for for more more authorization. So I think that's, that's an important thing. On the next slide, we just want to show you a visual of what what what our ut geo debt service looks like. This layers in the very top bar the the blue collar is layering the debt service on the new issue that we're asking your approval. And you can see that even with that we've got our debt will decline over time, which is why when you ask questions like How confident are we that we'll be able to continue to lower debt millage why we're confident we will be able to do that as that our our debt service has been purposely scheduled so that it'll decline over time and the burden on the taxpayers should be less in future years. Another category of debt is Lt. geo.mr. Watson indicated that's called limited tax General Obligation that's debt that the city is issued based on our full faith and credit that comes out of the general fund, as he indicated in this year's budget $86 million of debt service from our general fund. Virtually all of this debt was debt that we had to reissue at bankruptcy exit or to issue to exit bankruptcy. Even though none of us were here. We all remember reading about what was happening with the city as it headed towards you know, after the Great Recession of 2008. Money got tougher to come by. And the city needed ways to keep things going and so it it issued limited tax General Obligation debt. So the general fund was taking out debt to fund current operations. They secured that debt with a pledge of the city's distributable state aid. So it's not that could be discharged in the bankruptcy. And then that's that we issued the exit bankruptcy to our retirees for their V buttress that all this stuff is virtually from that. The only new dot that comes from from us is the the green bars the AI the IPA, the installment purchase agreements will lay around new debt from us. And you'll also recall that we took out a $10 million very low interest loan from the Michigan strategic fun to take down Joe Louis Arena in so that was that certainly issued by us after bankruptcy AXA and that that right now was we get an amount from Sterling. When they took over the property. The former Joe Louis Arena sat on that that is reimbursed by them. But but but even without sad and this is a substantial amount of debt. This is included for those that are interested when we submit our monthly financial reports to City Council under the Financial Review Commission at each quarter and we give you all the details of our debt and you can see where this debt is by instrument, but there's a billion dollars worth of debt that we're going to pay off and you can see as well we've been very careful to structure this so it declines over time. So we want those that follow us to have an easier time balancing this budget not harder, you know, and, and again, when you talk about credit ratings, this is things that credit ratings like to see is that you're not taking your debt and pushing it off to future years and saying things will be better. We just know they will. This this proves to people that our debt service is going to cost us less in the future. And then to end with a chart and we really do appreciate all of your your compliments. We just thought you'd be interested to see the city's rating history. You can see that right up until the Great Recession of 2008. The city was that investment grade and the green line is showing you the s&p rating the yellow line is showing you the Moody's rating. And then starting in 2008 You can really see as the great recession took its toll in the city. I think the state also had a hand in that with cutting revenue sharing to the to the city. The bond ratings got cut and culminating in 2013 when the bankruptcy was declared, it was clear that the city was insolvent obviously wouldn't had to declare bankruptcy had defaulted on its debt. And that's about as low as you can go with the credit rating agency is defaulting on your debt. And since then we've worked hard to bring it back up. It's been 10 years of work. I would say we've never had to do it alone. The mayor has made every single rating presentation with us over these 10 years. And as Mr. Rising indicated, we've learned a lot from listening to the rating agencies in terms of appreciating it when we get a one notch upgrade but asking them what do you see for us? What would what would it take for us to get better? So as we've worked that up over time again, we're obviously super excited about finally getting to investment grade rating. It's taken a long time, but it just shows that it's it's much easier to go down quickly than it is to come up and it takes it takes discipline. So with that, that's our non departmental presentation and we're glad to answer any questions. Great.

Thank you so much for the presentation. And we will go straight to questions. And I will start with Mr. Hall.

Thank you Madam President. And great to hear my questions you know are going to revolve around our retirees. I am glad to see the credit upgrade rating to investment status but I think we'd be remiss as well if we did not mention that came from the sacrifice of a lot of our retirees during the bankruptcy, who gave up a tremendous amount whether that be the cost of living or whether that be taking cuts in their pitcher. And so for me, it's good to see us getting back to where we are it looks like we're planning for the future. We still have to protect our actives, because there are folks who are in the pipeline. Now but we can never forget our retirees we made the sacrifice to be where we are today. That being said, and I know member waters who also co chairs the retiree task force with me will appreciate this as we talk about examining other ways that we can work to remake our to make our retirees feel more home. Obviously we can never go back we can't turn back the clock. But we talking about additional benefits. I know we can't necessarily are there we're limited with some things that we can do. What do we see relative to opportunities going forward for cost of living? For you know, again, I know you mentioned opening up that period of time. Do we think that allows us to still remain favorable in the eyes of credit. Or in regards to our credit rating? Do we think that will still make us appear favorable as well on the state level?

Yeah, thank you. So through the chair, member dirt Hall, certainly the 20 million that Mr. Watson talked about that's in this budget, and we made sure that both rating agencies heard that plan. And what's most important to them is that anything we're going to do we can afford to pay it we're not making a promise and then saying that people after us will have to pay off this promise. So knowing that this 20 million with Council's approval this budget has 10 million for legacy retirees. 10 million for enhancing active benefits. That's a start we recognize it's it's it's a small start against the sacrifices that retirees made. One of the other things we do to support them is you know, you saw it on the chart. We still have 10 more years of Grand Bargain money so we make sure that we make an annual presentation to the foundation for Detroit's future. It's some of the biggest philanthropists in the in the city are members of the foundation for Detroit's future and that they see what we're doing and they're concerned as well. They asked us to always talk about what we can possibly do to help the retirees so part of what we do is keep our grantee active. We don't want to certainly lose that 19 million because that would have to be made up by us. And we also have a grant that was from the Skillman foundation that they administer that provides administrative support for their for V buttress. So while retirees don't have anywhere near the health care they used to have pre bankruptcy. We can make sure that therefore V buttress are on really solid ground. And and and they are and you know in every year as part of getting that grant we have to provide audited financial statements for all for V buttress. I know this year they were very happy that Governor Whitmer is administration gave them a budget appropriation for our public safety, you know, activity buttressed. So we're always looking for opportunities and when there are things that we can do that, you know, that we can pay for in the budget. I think that's good, as Mr. Watson indicated, also where there's an opportunity to do something that wouldn't cost us money. The annuity savings, fun clawback that you heard about, there's still $96 million on the balance sheet to be recovered, but it was during the bankruptcy the way it was structured. It was a limited window. Those that were active got the money just taken out of their annuity savings fund account, but if someone already retired they had the option of paying it off by taking the money out of the retirement plan. They rolled the money over to or they were given a payment plan. And I think what you hear a lot, you know, because we spend a lot of time listening to council meetings, a lot of people that come before you are saying, Boy, I didn't know that it would go on for the rest of my life. And now that I'm doing it I wish I had that chance over again. So if we can push in, we will, with your approval to go back to the bankruptcy court to say let us reopen that window to let them pay off that balance if they have the resources to do it and to stop that when there's things like that. You know, any any opportunity like that, but we're we're always you know, look, you know, looking for that opportunity. I mean, both Mr. Watson and I sit on the Pension Board. And you know, we're we're there all the time hearing you know what this has been like for retirees and they really did, you know, sacrifice a lot in this bankruptcy. So we as well think it's really important to restore things whenever we can. And

this is not my second question. Just more so have a comment. I know again, you myself Member. Member waters. Mr. Watson. We have those discussions about what we can do we hear it we you know, we just recently had our first retiree taskforce meeting. And that was the main thing that was talked about the clawback the clawback, the clawback, and so, I'm going to be making a motion after my second question to put this entire non departmental budget into executive session as well in the closing resolution, as we examine ways for the clawback. But I will get into that after my second question. Second question just revolves around obviously, capital projects, capital improvement. We talked about sidewalks we talked about the need for more accessible accessibility for our disabled residents, and ensuring that those sidewalks are not broken or they have wheelchair ramps. But also, just when we talk about capital improvements that can also talk about our streetscapes, it can talk about our rec centers, it can kind of push more dollars into making the quality of life better for our residents, particularly in areas adjacent to the neighborhood. So this focus I know, we see a $20 million we see $20 million put in there. I know every single Capital Improvement Project is not going to be detailed in your slide. But can we talk more so just about infrastructure, can we talk about sidewalks Can we talk about I know you mentioned the sea walls and District Four. Can we talk about upgrading our water infrastructure as a whole even in my district? I know we talk about DWSD basement backup protection plan, but what about improving that infrastructure for the future?

I see the chair remember Dr. Hall. So yeah. So I mean, as you saw on the slide, I mean, there's a number of areas that were funding capital projects here at the city. You know, Ada improvements specific to Coleman, a young municipal senator, but obviously incorporating those into new builds and renovations as well. But if I may, I could hand it off to our associate budget director Danny Johnson, who's joining right behind us who could add a little bit more color to some of the specific projects that are proposed in this plan.

Okay, perfect. Go right ahead. Thank

you, Madam President, through the chair to member Dr. Hall. I think an important thing to note is a lot of this infrastructure, these infrastructure improvements are already kind of baked into the infrastructure plans for a lot of the implementing departments. For example, the Department of Public Works when they're doing sidewalk improvements when they're doing road work. streetscaping they're also taking into account things like the need for curb cuts, pull up zones for folks in wheelchairs, and other alternative mobility needs. Though, as to the water and sewer infrastructure. That's, it's a that's a really big, complicated thing as we know, you know, DWSD ayeni fund can easily be, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, they are on a 50 year capital cycle. In theory, your water system would turn over its asset every 50 years. Incorporating DWSD infrastructure improvements into our capital plan is something that we definitely have on our radar. We're definitely interested in doing and making that more transparent clear to residents. I know Gary and his team have done quite a lot of work trying to explain that attending a lot of community meetings, a lot of outreach efforts in that regard. And then as Mr. Watson said, you know, when director counts at the construction demolition department and her team are putting together plans for renovations and construction of new facilities. We are shooting for not just ADA accessibility, but maximum accessibility. I mean, Ada is that's the floor. I think we all know that. That's the bare minimum that is legally required. And as a city we know we are we are shooting to do better than the bare minimum as as I think everyone should. And so that is something we sent her quite prominently in our capital planning processes our accessibility and not just folks accessibility for folks with visible or obvious disabilities, folks who are neuro atypical folks who have different cognitive processing needs. So when we're talking about renovating buildings, it's not simply the physical accessibility aspect. It's the signage, it's the lighting, it's the way that the building itself is laid out to ensure that there's an easy and logical flow for someone to make their way through and understand and access that facility. So you know, to get to the really the the core of your question about accessibility, I, you know, I really need to stress that is something we really do center in our capital programming and planning.

And I'm glad to hear that, you know, I was kind of pushing you to talk about more so universal design was is that phrase, when we talk about our planning, when we talk about our master plan, what does that look like for residents and our disabled community and you'll probably hear if you stick around from his Maddox, I know she's waiting probably patiently on public comment, but that is one of her biggest ask. When we talk about developments or even just capital improvements from the city for us to consider universal design. So I'm glad that we're hearing about this. I'm going to put the entire or make a motion to put the entire budget into executive session, but I'm going to make two subsequent motions relative to the budget. So Madam President, if I may, I'd like to make a motion to put the entire non departmental budget into Executive Session.

All right, Hearing no objections that action will be taken.

Thank you, Madam President, and just for LPD because I know they're seeing and writing all of this down and said what do you specifically mean? So I would like to make a specific motion to put an executive session first in the non departmental budget a study on universal design.

Right, Hearing no objections that will be added.

Thank you, Madam President. Second, I would like to put in a capital budget. I'm sorry, the capital budget is Law Day executive. I would like to put into Executive Session. A motion to revisit for our retirees Viva cola as well as the annuity clawback and possible resources that can be utilized and funds that can be utilized to provide further assistance for active retirees as well as our other retirees.

Right Hearing no objections and action will be taken and

last my last motion Madam President, my last motion is to put into executive session and the closing resolution to find a way to contain you maybe a retiree rainy day fund and what I mean by this just so I can explain. I know we have our retiree Protection Fund. But if you look at pensions across the country, there are a lot of big city and municipalities that have a pension problem and and although I think the amazing work that you guys are doing right now will carry us for the next 30 years. 30 years before 2013 We didn't know that what's going to happen. And so maybe if we put a million dollars a year away, just extra into this retiree rainy day fund, you look up 30 years from now they even got $30 million you can work with so I'd like to make that motion as well.

Right Hearing no objections that action will be taken.

Thank you, Madam President.

Right. Thank you member Johnson.

Thank you, Madam President. And good afternoon again. I want to go to the five areas that were identified where bond financing will be utilized for those five areas can you share with us whether or not the use of bond funds will increase the debt millage or if it would prevent the debt millage from decreasing as a result of any of these projects?

So through the chair to member Johnson, so as we indicated the budget that's been submitted to you has a recommendation to approve seven mils which would be a one mil cut. And if you approve that, that would be on the summer property tax bills that would go out on July 1. So this year with your approval. We already know we're good. I should just talk briefly about how millage works. So it's on property. It's on all the property tax bills and treasurer Patel's team when they collect property taxes, the duck millage gets put in a separate millage escrow account. That's one of the protections for the bondholders, etc. It's a trust account at US Bank. And so we have a balance in that account that we managed to and we've got a very detailed model to make sure that when we say we're going to assess seven that that's going to be what it takes. And that's by law. What we're required to do is none of us can set a debt millage, that's for more or less than is needed to cover debt service. But the one chart that we showed that showed that you Toujeo debt service would decline over the future years. And the fact that we would have now we will now have exhausted all of our voter authorization. That's what makes us so comfortable member Johnson that we're will be able to continue to cut the debt millage. There's there's no reason or legal mechanism for us to raise it. If we don't need it to make our debt service. And all of those debts that we have outstanding. They're all It's all fixed rate. Now, there may even be some opportunities if interest rates come down as we all expect they will to do some refinancing to even take more of the pressure off of that future debt service. But even with the rates that we have locked in today, you saw that declining debt service over the years. That's why we're so confident that that millage will be able to continue to come down.

Thank you and that's just assuming that we don't add anything to it. If we just continue to decline or reduce any asks of UTG or LTO bond finding well UTG well LTO because we know there has to go out for a vote and all of that. So it would be UTG oh that we continue to expect to decline.

rug so through the Chair. Yes. So the UTG O is the only category of debt that uses the debt millage. And now again, if Council approves the resolution that we've submitted for next week's agenda, we will have exhausted all of the voter authorization we have so any new assets would have to come before Council and at first would have to be council saying we agree to put it on the ballot and then the voters would have to say yes and at this time, we have no such plans but you all in council are in control of that. Because you have to authorize anything that's going to go on the ballot, much like the previous council did when the 250 million was authorized for proposal on which obviously had a tremendous return on investment in terms of reducing blight and increasing home value. So you know, it really would have to be a unique proposition or unique need that at the time the administration and council would say, is this something we want to go back to voters for but if we don't, we're locked in that our debt service is going to decline and then we're only allowed to Lavie what it takes to make our debt payment.

Thank you, Madam President. I did see Mr. coilin. Mr.

President, so as council knows, every even year, the cabinet agenda comes before you for approval. And so I would hope that the cabinet agenda is realistic in terms of what needs we have, what future capital needs that we have. And if we're using all of the current voter authorization, but we have tremendous needs in the future for capital improvements. We're going to need to have the voters to approve further authorization, which is going to impact the level of the debt service. So yes, right now they're talking about a seven mil debt service. I think that's short, that could be that could be short lived, what I mean, you know, just a few years because at some point, the city has to address all of the capital needs going forward. Opera dollars going away. We're gonna find out are sneaky, surplus are shrinking. So I just want to put that out there that it sounds good right now that the debt the debt millage is seven at seven meals. It says that the knees are so great that at some point that's going to increase again. So just want to put that out there. Thank

you so much. Mr. Coralie member Johnson.

Thank you, Madam President. And so to that point, so earlier, we talked about some options or suggestions on ways to reduce our property tax meals right. We also talked about Mr. Rising you talked about the local assessment for hotels that goes to the convention Bureau. We've seen a number of development projects come through this body and prior to me getting here for sure. For development downtown. A lot of the work that is being done in the city happening downtown really encourages tourists to come to the city. Although as previously indicated, you know, two of my colleagues have introduced a local option sales tax and excise tax, whatever we want to call it. Whether is a stadium tax and amusement tax. I was thinking about a a text for the central business district that is entertainment period. That really says okay, we recognize the work that we do here as a body and the amount of tourism that has increased as a result of it, and how is that work contributing to the general fund so that we can increase the general fund revenue so that we can reduce property taxes we can take on some some capital projects that need to be addressed. Whatever. However, we decide to move forward with that additional, new revenue understandably, there would need to be something that happens within Lansing, which would be the case if we were to go the route that was suggested or or being entertained previously talked to me about that as an option. A local obvious local option sales tax and excise tax, if we've done any research into potentially the amount of revenue that that might be able to generate on an annual basis even just looking at the I was just gonna say even if we looked at the number of people or the amount of revenue, the local assessment that's generated from the hotels, because presumably that would be someone that is a tourist that is staying downtown have we entertained that as an option?

Chair, as you've indicated, these options are all legislatively required. actions require you to be able to take them there are some some of the

actions like a sales tax on tangible personal property is precluded under state state constitution from us imposing a tax because all revenues from that has to go to my album, a certain portion has to go to schools certain portion has to go to go to roads. So there's some conclusions according to the Attorney General's office. I think it's important question, I think it's worthy of a longer conversation. When you can design a tax system for a city that exports some of its tax base to people who are using the resources of the city by coming downtown and, but not paying taxes. In order for the services of receiving whether it's police or protection. I think that's a ethical way to thinking, efficacious way of thinking about a tax system. And that it's something that it's much likely waitering tax in that we're exporting the tax liability to people who are using casinos from outside of the city. So we haven't yet received the data in order to understand exactly what entertainment tax or some type of tax like that within the downtown during May, may produce, but it's something we're happy to look at with you. Thank you and you said you haven't yet. Is it something that you're looking into now? It's not yet. We haven't yet. Done that. Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam President. With that, I would like to make a motion to add to Executive Session, a study to evaluate the implementation of I'm just going to call it a local option sales tax. Within the central business district. Any objections? Hearing none, that action will be taken. Right. Thank you. Member Johnson. Member Santiago Ramiro. Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon again, my questions I am going to stick on our ut GL depth and there is going to be you mentioned requests in front of Council, the 15 million for transportation and public safety. Can you explain a little bit more on what that's going to result in? So if the 14 million for transportation is primarily for the Coolidge bus terminal improvements that are already underway, as well as we are using some previously authorized transportation bonds for some of the work at the Peoplemover that Director General Manager Kramer talked about when he was here,

through the Chair and the public safety components that is associated with transportation, is it what does that entail? What do you mean by public safety that's associated with the 15 million for transportation and public safety?

So through the chair to number set here, Romero, um, so which slide or page are you looking at? I might be looking at the wrong page eight. Oh, I'm sorry. I see. So the student chair that the public safety facilities, so this is one component of many going towards the various police precinct facility improvements that director counts talked about in DPD talked about, specifically the seventh precinct, ninth precinct, as well as some work at other precincts in our firehouses.

Do the Chair Thank you. That's helpful I if that was shared, something that I missed? There is a allocation for community land trusts, which is exciting. But what does that process look like? Is it first come first serve? How can Community Council members what is the plan to utilize that funds?

So through the chair, so you know, we're eager to work with the Council on as well as with the housing department on exactly how that will play out? I know, it's an idea that that council has been talking about before as well and we're eager to work together on on how that will be implemented

through the chair. Understood, thank you. So what I figured and that's exciting. I think what it's going to look like is whoever is prepared to accept it with their community will do so. So you might have to fight and that's okay to do so. But that just means a community shouldn't be prepared to utilize those funds. And if it's successful, that we put more money into it, given the need that we have across the city. Those would be my two questions. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Council Member, member Young.

Thank you, Madam President. Let's say good morning, good afternoon and good night. Thank you. Appreciate your time. I just wanted to ask you really quickly, because we now have investment grade who graduated that's a that's a really big deal. investment grade bonds. Will that allow us to be more we have to be careful how we do this because get in trouble last time. But what that will allow us to be able to look at public private partnerships in some of our assets, particularly our I mean, I know this is the water department is enterprise fund. So it's a little bit different, but will we be able to look at that in terms of it. What I mean by that is that the city would still own operating maintain, but the design the financing of that the building of that go to the private sector, will we be more open and be able to do that for some of our projects that are cost prohibitive? Now in terms of upfront money, but we could pay off in the long term because of our investment grade or is it just too cost prohibitive? And are the interest rate market just not you know, not necessarily feasible financially

so through the chair remember Yun? I would say that, you know, certainly the investment grade gives us lots of benefits you know, as Mr. Rising indicated, one of the big ones is when we go to the market to sell bonds, there are certain entities that can't buy bonds that aren't investment grade, our own retire Protection Fund. We have a lot of bonds in that. And that's our mandate is that virtually all the bonds that are in there have to be investment grade by not one but two rating agencies. So there's a lot of people that are careful that will dip their toe in the water in Luscher investment grade, and that supply and demand certainly helps us and I would say because we are we're a better partner. One of the projects that our teams working on right now through an RFP processes the solar project and and that there's many different forms that that financing could take, but the fact that we have an investment grade makes us a better partner for people. It's not it's not the same pitches that we got 10 years ago where people came in here, but they were trying to take advantage of the fact that we had weak credit and would you know, offer us things that we'd say, now we're not ready to do that. So I would say to the extent we're a better partner and it opens up many and and I think our colleagues in you know, directors in various departments, they're always looking for those opportunities, you know, the electrification is going to have, you know, ramifications on who do we partner with to put charging stations and so I you know, I don't want to pretend to know everything that's happening in our departments, but I think those departments are always very creative looking at who could they best partner with. And those of us from the finance side now that we have a investment grade credit rating standard behind us, show that we're the real deal and that whoever is going to partner with us, you know, can't do it just because they're trying to take advantage of our low credit rating. We're we're there as a partner that can work together to get the best outcome.

You know, I appreciate that. I just wanna make sure let me show I'm a little more specific in my question, and that's a great answer. I but I was referring particularly about for projects that we'll see cost prohibitive. So let me give you some examples. So it is the each right right now, one of the things one of the issues that I wanted to deal with was involved in the overflowing of our sewer systems, right. And so naturally, I would say we should expand the capacity of the pipe. And what I'm saying is we it because I was we couldn't be able to provide the money, the capital upfront, but if we work through a public private partnership, will we be able to do that with a fire that will the private sector will be able to pay for that design that bill that we would pay the bat in the long term over a 30 year 40 year, you know, interest rate process, or that we want to separate the because, you know, it's it's a combined sewer overflow. So it's all you know, your wastewater, your industrial water, your potable water, drinkable water, all in one pipe. So if I want to separate that, that was see cost prohibitive. Could I go to the public private partnerships and say that this is something that we would like to do over a 30 year period or it's just because of the yield curve and the interest rates that just doesn't really see financially feasible? Because usually you will be able to do that over a long period of time, because when the interest rates are they may not work out financially. That's what I was trying to. That's what I'm trying to say it turns that I think that's an opportunity for us to dress the capital needs that we had you don't do it through a different route.

So through the chair to remember young, I would say that, you know, Mr. Gary Brown is a person that definitely should talk more about to about that. The fact that we are, you know, partners with glioma, who's obviously worked hard on their own credit rating and gotten that up to you know, strong investment grade ratings show the projects that they want to do that benefit Detroit and in Mr. Brown being on the board of Great Lakes Water Authority has a lot of influence. So those creative ideas work. You know, I would I would just say from personal experience, privatizing water and sewer systems with operators hasn't always worked out well, for people, you know, that sometimes, and a lot of times we believe this, a government with our own unionized workforce can do things just as effectively if not more effectively, than trying to outsource it to someone who's got a profit motive so, but I know Mr. Mr. Brown is just very creative and looking at how we can finance these things. Oh,

glad you brought that up. And that's a great point. And I appreciate that and you're right about it later. Take the time to clarify. I'm not talking about trying to privatize not the system. What I will talk about was charged with the project itself, the financing of the project, the designing of the project, the building of the project, I want to talk about, you know, the operations or the maintenance or the ownership or control of it, but I'm glad you brought it up because Thank you, you saved my bank because allowed me to clarify that because I want to make that clear. That is not what I was referring to, but I appreciate it. And then secondly, I also just wanted to ask you because we have investment grade bonds. Do you see any of the other issues that we might want to use for capital improvements, whether it's our roads, whether it's our sidewalks, whether it's tearing down houses, where we need to further issue debt in order to pay that off? Or do you think we're in such a good financial position, that we just continue to keep going down the road that we're going we wouldn't have to borrow as much because the financial position or you or is it because even though we just were in a better financial position is still so telling us that wouldn't be a good idea?

Yep, you know, I my first instinct is always to pay as you go. If we can afford it, and you could do in your budget. You try to fit your capital needs in the budget. There's some value to pay for things, larger things which are going to be used over a longer period of time by users in residence of the city. So the so the people who actually are using the project are the ones who are getting paid for it. So you and I today don't have to pay 100% of the property of the project cost, which is really meant for people to use for a long period of time. And usually those are like revenue bonds, systems and things like that. So that's when I look to borrowing as as a as a better option. The installment purchase contract is a perfect idea. We use these cars over five years. Why should we pay one year for the for the for the cost of that car. And so the idea is to spread over five years see the cost of the of the use of the car so that every budget takes a little piece of having an upgraded credit rating. Let's just make that decision easier because it gives us a lower interest rate and lower costs.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you remember young remember waters

Hello again everybody

watching is is Fort Wayne still city asset you know downhill Jefferson. Because somebody's out. Yeah. Okay. So any plans for

so through the chair to member waters so we can get back to you on the all the details about you know the status of all the assets at Fort Wayne. I know there's been many, you know, ideas looked at in the past. I'm not up to speed on the latest plans, but we can make sure the relevant department follows up.

Oh, yeah, I just want to because you You guys are the money people. So I wanted to ask you, and I may have some false myself. So I'll be submitting bills in writing. All right. That's it. Thank you, ma'am. When?

All right, thank you. Councilmember waters member Callaway.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To all my colleagues point I'd like to put into executive session the whole discussion about what's happening over there at the historic Fort Wayne. I was over there a year ago and we belong to just a totally deteriorate. It used it was built never used but it was built to protect our, our our shores, or our city

against the French.

I mean, we didn't have to use all that we had over there. So we should have preserved it. We've allowed I was over there. I was crying I had to stop to cry.

But what I saw

I asked for tarp to be placed over some of the roofs to protect all the hardwood and all the other artifacts and things inside the buildings. I don't think that happened. I'm gonna go over there tomorrow to see this was a year ago. I called the colleague who represents that district, I mean represents that area in her district. And so I'm going to make a motion to put historic Fort Wayne into the Executive Session. You did okay because it's long overdue. And I'm hoping we're not trying to tear down some developer can build some high rise apartments because that's what I'm feeling and we should restore it. It is a a national treasure. And Biden should come in here and take a look at it and he would feel the same way. So that's my commentary. I'm glad you put an executive session because what we've allowed to happen over there is just despicable. My first question is first of all, we the people of Detroit do ordain and establish this charter for the governance of this city, as it addresses the needs of all citizens and affirms our commitment to the development and welfare of our youth. Our most precious treasure. Nothing in this budget has youth on it. Please don't say you know, we can go back to another budget hearing we have with parks and recs. But on page three of the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget expenditures, why

are we

cutting the budget for goal line support when they have a waiting list of children? Why? I don't understand it, but we wouldn't need a project clean slate. If we start investing in children at an early age but we have a hunt we have $1.6 million in Project Clean Slate we need that because we're not catching the children before they need before we need the project Clean Slate if we catch them early if we work with them early. If we give them the services that they need early in life, we wouldn't need a project clean slate. So I am just kind of perplexed as to why we are cutting and this this charter says they're our most precious treasure with this city does not treat them as such. We're relying on dpscd to do all the work now they live in our city. It's their job to educate. It's our job to protect and nurture and treat them as if they were our own precious treasure as this charter says on page one in our preamble. So I am going to ask that we put into Executive Session. Go live. I cannot sit here and let that be cut. No way. Is it and I've gone over there. We brag about it. The administration brags about the good work that they're doing them why cut it if it's working? Why are we cutting it? I don't understand that. So that's that's my second motion, Madam Chair. If I need to go back to the first one. Okay, so it was regarding the historic Fort Wayne. I think she ordered a new Yes ma'am. The second one is regarding the goal line line. Support yet, and I'm just not understanding why we're cutting something that's working. If you keep cutting it, it'll be non existent. If we have something that's working, which this is because we've opened up a second location, then I have to insist that we fund it properly. We need to fund it properly. So that's my that's my second request. And we need to do what this says this this we need to do what it says. My second question is with this planned and potential debt issuance. Now we just came out of bankruptcy not so long ago. We just got our credit rating up. I'm just not comfortable with issuing all these new bonds. I'm certainly not comfortable with setting aside $55 million on vehicles. So I'm going to put that 55 million to spread vehicle acquisition cost across five years into Executive Session. Just because we are getting this better credit rating. We shouldn't start issuing bonds and let's just breathe. Let's enjoy the moment. though. I'm going to ask that that also be placed in executive budget Executive Session. Then I also want to know who's driving these cars. I know DPD I know we have but some if you're not living in the city, you shouldn't have access to a vehicle. So that's a whole nother conversation. But Madam Chair, that's my my second motion is to put the 55 million to spread vehicle acquisition costs across five years into Executive Session.

All right, we'll take that one a verse, any objections to do so? And then hearing none that motion is approved to send that to executive session and then you have one additional do we vote on the goal line? We voted on goal line? It was one of the one you mentioned. Yeah.

She's shaking her head. No,

we didn't vote on the goal line one. I thought we did. Okay, everyone. Thought we did well, let's just do it again. The motion has been made to send the goal line program to Executive Session Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Yes.

And thank you, Madam Chair and also the $22 million public lighting UTG Oh, I mean, I know it goes before it. Has it already gone before the voters are we okay, and we voted yes on that. I hope I wasn't one of the yes votes, but at any rate. Madam Chair, that's it. I mean, I have our submit my questions, but just looking at that goal line is is very, very troublesome for me because if Cuba is working, then we need to increase it. So Madam Chair, that's it for me. Thank you and thank you.

All right, and we did add those to Executive Session. And I just wanted to one question. It was actually one of the questions that I had an LPD raise it as well just relative to submitting an actual list of all of the union contracts that will be expiring in fiscal year 25. And then also having a better understanding of how you all come up with the work Workforce Investment Fund amount that's allocated the $7.5 million, it seems to be a bit insufficient to the amount of contracts will be coming up to cover the requests that are being asked I know the mechanics are asking for a bonus we have all of these different requests. So how do you calculate what is being put into the workforce plan without knowing the negotiations that are actually taking place and that's efficient? So

Madam President so we you know, we size it so you know, after weighing all the kind of relative you know, needs and priorities in the budget and you know, see what's left and and size it according to you know, the coming labor contracts and what the additional increases my cost, you know, knowing that, you know, the the rest of the budget already includes the expected wage pattern, the ones that we've seen historically for civilians, that's been two to two and a half percent for public safety. It's been three or 4% of those already baked into the budget. So this is for anything that goes above and beyond that. And so for example, last year, we set aside over $6 million, and really only had to call upon about $5 million of it, but you're right, it is it isn't unlimited. So certainly the resources are still limited as we go through these negotiations. But what we've tried to do here is pool the risk to make sure that that there's at least a pool available for those deals that do get done because agreed, I mean, the negotiating is still going on the results are not final. So this is there just as a contingency. The you know, the ultimate need could be less it could be more but this is this is we just wanted to make sure we had something set aside knowing that there will be upward pressure. They're just

one of the values of this fund is the fact that it covers many different contracts. So it doesn't put in a particular preparation for a particular type of employees. A certain number so they have basically a target to for the negotiations. So this was just taken, became like a mountain and have the negotiations proceed. Yeah, without tipping our tipping our hand about what's available for anyone negotiation.

All right, thank you. And then also I would like to add to our executive session, I know the reparations Task Force budget is under non departmental and we could have read the discussion and they're going to come before us during non departmental so if there's a motion, can we please add that as well to our Executive Session? All right, thank you so much Hearing no objection is that action will be taken and then lastly, I gotta pull up my memo. We have a memo in budget Finance and Audit. Regarding the establishment of a youth budget, similar kinda to what you were actually talking about member Callaway. Similar to participatory budgeting this initiative aims to empower our youth by granting them decision making authority over over a specific portion of the budget. Introducing this system not only allows young individuals to acquire essential skills and financial decision making, but also fosters a heightened sense of responsibility and accountability. And so we probably won't get it done this fiscal year, but we want to add it to executive session to at least have a discussion to see how we can implement something of this sort here in the city of Detroit. So is there a motion to do so? All right, Hearing no objections, we will add that to our executive session. And remember, yeah,

yeah, thank you. This is not for this budget. Great job, but I forgot to add something I would like to have a compensation study for the mechanics. And I would like to add that so I want to make a motion to have a compensation study for the mechanics in the General Services departments. I think that's what that would be. Okay.

Any

objections? All right, hearing none, we will add that to our Executive Session.

Yeah. One more I'm sorry. Thank you for this. I'm sorry. No, I'm not readily here. But I'd also like to add to Planning and Development. Two things one, I would like to add a motion for a study for 20 to 30 minute neighborhoods. So I'd like to make a motion for us to have a study for 2030 minute neighborhoods and see each Right.

Right. motion has been made. Mr. Corley, are you getting all of this? Okay, Hearing no objections that will be added to Executive Session.

This is my last one ever. I also like to make a note, thank you for thanking everyone for your patience. I also we'd like your tolerance. I also would like to make a motion for our planning and development department for an analysis on if we had more multifamily homes rather than single family homes. And what that would look like in the city Detroit cost wise. So I like to make a motion to do that as well. All right,

any objections? Hearing none, as the motion will be approved All right, Mr. Curley, I know you are loaded over there you guys are we appreciate you. You guys are done with the budget hearing. Thank you all for being here. Mr. Are you had a question is gonna go away. I'm sorry, Mr. Corley.

A couple Thank you, and prisoners. So on. page B 80 dash two and B 80 Dash eight. There's reference to a solar project, bond and debt service. million dollars a year. And what is that for? Because that'd be good for the council to understand that a bit better.

So to the chair to Mr. Coralie. So, we put in the budget as Mr. nagrik discussed earlier to funding for an anticipated but still in development, solar financing for the projects that have been proposed by the mayor, very similar to a number of other items that are in the budget. You know, this is an active project and we wanted to make sure there was some funding in the budget should it when it comes to for council should it be approved?

So manifesto this is just general find out it's this is not an installment purchase type thing, right. Okay. It be at the edge too. And you'll see the debt service million dollars a year on B 18 Dash eight.

And then my last question relates to the rating agency. So we know that there's $150 million in that rainy day fund. Last year, we put in about 13 million. So 250 million, that's about almost 11% of our recurring general fund budget. Best Practices says it should be around 15%. So I had little ways to go. Did Moody's make any suggestions that we should look to put more money to the right they find? Or do we have a little time where we don't need to put more money in or do they finally make other investments?

The chair Moody's

didn't talk about this. They recognize the level which is a lump miseries just about 11%. State law requires five you know, I'm always advocate that this is a tight budget. We thought this year we could take a pause with additional contributions and satisfy other needs, they will be expressed but can also have as well as the administration. So we and I think they recognize also that we have multiple layers of reserves. retiree pressures Fund is a reserve and so on. And so with that, additional reserves, and our total general fund reserves is over a billion dollars now. And they really pay attention to that.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Corley. All right. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for your time. I will conclude our budget hearing for non departmental and we will go straight to public comment for this afternoon. How many callers Paris

Madam President, there are 10 callers with their hand raised. Okay. The first is William M. Davis.

Good afternoon, Mr. Davis.

Good afternoon. Can I be here? Yes, sir. Awesome. I know they don't do this. But have they had any discussions about trying to do anything to help get our school debt? No, it's lower. Because you know, there's a lot of buildings that we still show up on our taxes that they'll no longer exist. Also have they explored the possibility of tapping more funds to try to get our our pension fund fully funded? You know, like saying 30 years, most of the current city charter retirees would be dead. You know, I think a greater effort should be made. Now to help us and a greater average should be made to work out why and look for funds that could help boost our pension fund. You know, like say 30 years then there's gonna be 100% You know, and also every time they contribute money to the either the pension fund or the Pension Protection Fund and the general fund. They should also say what the current funding level is up for the pension beforehand and at the hand, you know, they should give us more data and more information. I'm still troubled by also is related to media service. earlier. As you know, I was a police commissioner, and it would be more helpful for the public if, if those meetings was broadcast live and still ultimately showing up sometimes, days later or weeks later, you know, because we have a lot of problems with crime reporting and a lot of problems that could be people could get a better eye on stuff. If media service was able to broadcast at least three or four weeks, the Border Police Commission meetings, maybe not the evening meetings when it's like at 630 but the earlier maintenance will be very helpful. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

The next caller is Betty a Varner.

Good afternoon Miss Varner.

Good afternoon with that all within the sound of my voice I agree with everything that Mr. Davis just stated, and especially about those board of police commissioners meetings. I went on the other day, and they still only had meetings for February nothing in March. I want to say that it was good to hear about the monies that the city is allocating out of the budget regarding the city parks and rec centers. I want to suggest that the city administration and the council should allocate monies to community organizations that are to help them be successful and create new paths in their community. Okay, I'm going to talk about my organization diba winning coaches for vacant lots that we're adjacent to each other. We use our dudes monies. This was before the neighborhood beautification grant, and please don't get it twisted. We appreciate the neighborhood beautification grant. I'm just stating we did this on our own. We cleaned up the law last, the last day were purchased from the land bank, we remove trees. Now we need help. We want to have some playground equipment. And so I'm just thinking that the city should also help the organizations we're not looking for a handout, a handout when looking for a hand up just to help us be successful to have a park in our immediate area because our children are playing in the street running for balls, dodging the cards, even though we were successful to get the speed humps so I just wanted to put that out there, you know, help the organizations that are creating the pouts in their community. Thank you. Right Thank you Miss Varner.

The next caller is Karen Winston.

It's Winston. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Go ahead.

Yeah. Okay. Great. Um, first of all, let me speak about that $22 million from public lighting that was pre bankruptcy. So all of those obligations were taken care of. So that money should not still be there. Unless I'm thinking backwards. Another thing is Mr. Negative, he did admit that they have contractors that are handling retiree used records, they were exposed up six, maybe eight months ago, and they are left open for anybody who wants to you complete with address social security number. You know, so we have a problem with too many contractors handling sensitive information, you know, so I don't know how we can get maybe you could just we as residents, how we can have access to giving we can't send you an attachment, there's a blockage so we want to send you a picture of something we're not able to describe system. At Gmail, we can't send you anything all we can do is email leads. Okay. So I think we should, first of all, everyone needs to present and you need to approve their procedures. You shouldn't have to ask them how does this work? Because you should have you should have their rules you should have the way that they're, they operate. So that's one thing. Nobody has them. So you look on there and try to find some bylaws they have and they have to be approved by you. Okay, that's the approved. So when these guys come in here telling you what they're doing is ludicrous. You know, that's putting the cart in front of the horse that doesn't work. So these are just some things that I've come to see from outside looking in and trying to figure out how everybody comes in and tells you Oh, yeah, we're doing that we're gonna do this. We're gonna do that. They're private partnerships than the public should be told. If the city's operating under some cooperative mandate the city could become, we shouldn't have to ask, we shouldn't have to kind of figure it out. Thank you.

Right, thank you.

The next caller is ADOS Detroit.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. No name for the chair, Carolyn Hughes. May be hurt. Yes, ma'am. Director Perkins with General Services is a very good example of what Detroit employee should look like. She is very engaged and she's looking forward to helping and assisting the people in the city of Detroit. It seems like your poll budget is about retirees and employees. That is not the purpose of the general fund or the purpose that you serve you serve the residents. That's who needs all of this energy that you're spending on other things. And a question to the LCF office. I I understand them to say that you can't you can't you can't. You can't go in and to earn a contract with someone that owes money and I mean, does that include water bills did that. Does that include other or all people? And it was interesting that the generated amount for the audit for the for this auction was $300,000. To date, is that what the contract is calling for? It seems like there's a lack of transparency that's going on in the city of Detroit and it appears that we have lots of assets and money that are going in all kinds of places and you you all have no idea thus we have no idea. I'd like to give Miss Calloway the the award today because she really speaks out for the people. And she really is engaged and watching after our funds. I do remember the historic putting money in to cover those those buildings out there with tarps and if it hasn't been done it appears that nobody cares about city assets that are in this administration. Now they don't care about the people, the children or any of the needs of the people. I am not a Medicaid person but I do deserve our funds because it money came for me. Thank you.

The next caller is Cindy Dara. Cindy

dar Good afternoon.

Good afternoon Cindy Dara.

I show her microphone is muted, Madam President.

Thank you Cindy dark you can just mute your microphone.

Alright, let's come back to Cindy please.

Okay, madam president. The next caller it ends in 270.

Caller 270 Good afternoon.

Caller 270. Good afternoon.

Yeah, no president and residents as well as the rest of the conference is Monique Shelton. I wish I had more time anyway. I heard them say that. I heard Steve Watson say that this city still had approximately $500 million in an issue. UT geo bond and I heard God negative come in and say that those are close to $500 million worth for unlimited texture location bonds had been issued and that's why the debt service millage rate could stay low or at seven. So that's a contradiction there. Also, the plan of adjustment requires that the condition and the terms and the rules pertaining to the calculation or contributions to the pensions be amended that it could be amended by June 30 2023. Now we're in 2024 now, so there's nothing stopping the city from providing relief to the pensioners according to the plan of adjustment. The Oh CFO and the Dugan administration are issuing municipal bonds and piling debt on the residents and taxpayers unnecessarily. I mean, they told on themselves. They said that unlimited textual obligation bonds is a rising steady are only supposed to be used for long term projects. Then they turn around and talk about they want to spend some bond funds on some vehicles. That's not the purpose but unlimited tax obligation bonds are supposed to be paid for, for items that will last as long or longer than the duration of the bond. And paying it off. Those bonds that those UTG Oh bonds for 2004 2009 You need to go.

Madam President, the next caller is Cunningham.

Hi, Cunningham. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon,

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madam president the next caller is to hear a mad

alright, good afternoon.

Good afternoon, counsel. First of all Detroit was in bankruptcy. Okay. The state owed us $900 million in revenue sharing. How are you going to be bank with Rob with three casinos. A billion dollar water system and COBOL Cobo Hall, dia, everything that was stolen from us in the fake bankruptcy. Would will testify to the fact that we weren't bankrupt it was an opportunity for white corporations to disinvest in the city. And make it look like it's bankrupt so they could steal our assets in a fake bankruptcy. An excellent article to read is why Chicago won't go bankrupt. And Detroit didn't have to. That proved it. I think tickets should be served a surcharge to pay back the the property taxes stolen from people in Detroit. A surcharge of $3 per ticket needs to be charged for each pistons ticket each NFL ticket is h two tigers ticket chips to be at $3 surcharge and pay us back that way we can we can invest in our homes and reinvest in the city. That's a smart thing to do rather than have us be put into poverty because our money was stolen from us I know you all trying to work on to pay paying us back but we need you to step it up because we I'm not gonna be around forever I'm you know I'm saying a lot of us elderly people we're trying to keep our houses homes are an investment. We need you to find a way to end this budget hearings and give us our money back. That's all we want you to do. We have quit bugging you about it. Once you give us our money back. Have a blessed day. Thank you so much. All

right. Thank you

the next caller is black bag room.

Yeah, I kind of figured Jon's gonna give me before I got back to my desk. But don't need to give me a Spirit of Detroit award somebody make a motion to give me a spirit of the trading work. Because I have uncovered that documented discovered in Detroit voter trap houses here in the city of Detroit. Every elected position I respect reiterate, every elected position in the city of Detroit was now highly highly inquest, because it was going on at the Department of Elections. That's over there on 2978 West Grand Boulevard. know Mary Leigh Beckman doesn't live at 12 a bore to sub six that ballot was put in she was registered there to 14 and 2020 floor. Got It went in 226 2024. Sione laying there and a resident that later said he'd been living there for five months. Now the video Oh, y'all got it. Y'all didn't see anybody now. Unless y'all avoid looking at it. And everybody just avoid looking at it is highly suspect right now. The complexity of the Detroit city cars are 2004 2024 Detroit City Council is evident. It's obvious you're robbing the kids out there money that won't get over tax people back there money. Some y'all gotta go. Very Sheffield, James he take Jr. Now both voted no, Gabriella Santiago. Remember you voted no. Scott Benson. You voted no. Oh, y'all need to go. Now. What police commissioners really bill. Y'all ready to take him now? The white Lawrence Akbar was robbing the city. Same thing cracky Mike did recrafted my Hawaii the crap because they pleased the city and now they're living in the Manoukian. scot free

the next caller is Marguerite Maddox. Scarlett.

Good afternoon Miss Maddox.

Yeah, no no. Thank you

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Would like the

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Did you want me to number one lady.

The next caller is Steven hollering

All right, Steven, hurry. Can I be heard? Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Mr. Hurry. Hey, can I be heard? Yes, you can be heard. We can hear you. Okay.

Thank you. You Yeah, so, um, I just want to get survey some comments made by Miss Joann. Wow. Like about transgender youth that I just thought was really offensive. For example, gender affirming care, you know, you the largest amount of youth suicide in the transgender is youth who were not allowed to go through Gen or affirming care from either their conservative parents or were black due to state laws. You know, I just thought that was a real sensitive comment, you know, times are changing or you know, whatever she thinks it doesn't really matter. You know, you know, also you know, I want to also apologize, you know, if I offended Councilwoman Calaway about the avenue of stashing, you know, I don't live there I go there often and you know, when I go there seems like it's doing well and you know, when I see images from 2014 compared to now it looks like it's doing well but of course yet there was of course the street getting torn up, and there was, um, you know, several other things in COVID. So, you know, it might not be doing well, I don't know, but you know, I'm just following what I hear from the media and stuff. You know, I hear articles say it's the next Black Wall Street and everything. So I apologize. I mean, that offended you. You know, obviously, hopefully, someday we'll do better. And lastly, I just want to say I'm once again happy about the transit budget. You know, and hopefully you can see some improvements. The service has already been much better. I took the word word bus, I missed one and the next one came 10 minutes right on time, so it's getting better but you know, we still have so much work to do.

All right. Thank you.

Lastly, Madam President, where we are returning to Cindy Daraa Mystara.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. I went out into a Republican. So I miss most of your afternoon meeting, but I did hear about the last hour in the morning. And I just want to know how far is Dexter and Elmhurst from Williams recreation center that's already been a center since the 80s I think and now we have closed for over four years for testing for the city workers and then after that, they claim there was a break and so they decided they're going to rehab the whole building and it just goes on and on. Doesn't reopen. And same thing with Coleman Young and claim that dance got a bad foundation, I think and I know Williams I work there as electrician. They don't have ground wires in the pipes and so when the pipes rusted out, they don't have a ground so I put a bunch of GFI sin on the work I did to try and make sure it had a ground. I mean, it trips faster than the ground I make a trip so it's safe, but they need to if they are remodeling main Kampala grounds, you know, that's redundant, but it's kind of important. So that's I didn't like the idea that you're you're building new ones and you haven't even fix the old ones. I don't. I don't think that's on us. And the trees they cut down for 56 year old trees in front of my house. And they are good. They gave us cooling they gave us oxygen shade. Beautiful and those are gone. So we don't have any little forest on our corner of Second Peter Roth. But they lied about that those were viable trees that was General Service Department line. And they also lied and said they were going to replant trees so they never did that either. So I just would like to see you focus on this stormwater instead, and find out how you can use city workers inside of contractors.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Daraa and that will conclude all of our public comment for today. And there's nothing else to come before us. We will adjourn this meeting and resume tomorrow at 10am. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you LPD thank you everyone in this meeting will now stand adjourned.