DETROIT – Business might be booming in the city of Detroit, but that’s not hitting the bottom line of the mayor’s budget.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan presented his budget for the fiscal year on Friday. It’s a good news-bad news scenario. The good news is that revenue is up. The bad news is that it’s pretty much all spoken for because of the pension issues from the city’s bankruptcy.
“It is by far the tightest budget that we have faced,” Duggan said.
Duggan’s sixth budget is a whopping $2.4 billion overall. The general fund is just over $1 billion.
There’s $11 million in new money in the door, but new obligations hit hard: The retiree protection pension payment of $5 million and a bankruptcy bond payment phase-in of another $5 million.
“Which means that anything that we want to do that is a new initiative, our departments need to come up with savings and efficiencies,” Duggan said.
Duggan said that’s what they did. He believes he can add between $12 million and $13 million in new spending, even though city employees can expect a contractual 2% pay raise.
He wants to increase police salaries, starting at $42,000 a year, and spend $7 million to add 400 new officers.
Duggan also wants to spend a couple million dollars on a 24/7 Animal Control program.
He said $2 million will help the Detroit Fire Department modernize.
A fourth grass cut of vacant lots this year would cost just under $2 million, Duggan estimates.
It’s not a guarantee the Detroit City Council will go along with his plans.
“If there is an economic downturn, we’ll deal with this, but this gives us a fighting chance to handle it without state takeover,” Duggan said.
Duggan reminded council members that the state can come back in if the city’s budget doesn’t remain balanced. That usually reduces the amount of bickering over spending.