DETROIT – It’s a stark contrast from where the city of Detroit stood just a decade ago. Mayor Mike Duggan says the city’s financial struggles are firmly in the rearview.
So, on Thursday (March 7), he turned his attention to the future, explaining how his proposed budget for 2025 should make the city safer and more sustainable for Detroiters.
In 2015, Duggan presented his first budget to the city council out of bankruptcy. It was just over a billion dollars. Ten years later, he’s proposing a budget slightly larger, at $1.4 billion. But the city’s financial fortunes are decidedly different than they were back then.
Duggan said job growth increased city tax income, allowing it to do things unimagined a decade ago.
The first is being able to pay the required $150 million for the city retiree pension obligation, which he’s adding more to but leaving the overall budget tight.
“We have $170 million in pension retiree obligations we did not have two years ago, and that $170 million is owed,” said Duggan. “I believe it’s not just a legal obligation; it’s a moral obligation.”
The mayor is looking to add 117 new Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) bus drivers and 20 more buses.
He’s asking for $29 million for elections, solid waste, more fire, EMS, and police coverage, and asking for $15 million for summer overtime.
“We filled 200 of them last year, and we’ll fill another 250 this year, but even with that, there is a need for more police officers on the street in the summer,” Duggan said.
To the train station where Ford is transforming, recalling resident pushback to tax breaks, he said the city council’s courage and frugality were vital.
“That train station would be empty, that Michigan corridor would look like the success we are having today is a direct result of the courage of you and your predecessors over the last 10 years, and I know some of you still have some of the scars from those decisions,” Duggan said.
So now the pension protection fund is $455 million, the rainy day fund is $150 million, and council members had specific questions about how to spend the money, but they weren’t combative with the mayor about the budget.