Rescue 4's Waste Watchers discovered that Detroit is paying more than $15,000 per month for a building that is no longer being used.

The former Detroit police training academy headquarters on Park Street has been shut down for the past three years, but the city continues to pay on a lease that doesn't expire until Jan. 31, 2006, Rescue 4 reported.

City officials said the administration of former Mayor Coleman Young signed the 20-year lease on Feb. 1, 1986 and that the current administration is stuck with the nearly $180,000 per year payment.

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"We've tried to get out of that lease, but the owner would not allow us to," said James Tate, Detroit police spokesman. "It's such a dilapidated building. It's only being used at this point for storage and also for some training for our special response team."

The windows of the former police building are boarded up, the doors are locked, the lights off and graffiti covers the outside walls.

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick announced last week that cuts in jobs and transportation would be necessary to help reduce a budget deficit estimated at $230 million. Taxpayers say because the city is in financial trouble, it should find a way out of the lease agreement or determine how the building that's being paid for can be put to use, Rescue 4 reported.

City officials told Waste Watchers that they're open to ideas on how to make use of the structure, which has 56,000 square feet of available space.