Content warning: This article briefly mentions suicide.
Ann Arbor City Council met at Larcom City Hall Monday evening for a work session to discuss budget requests from various city departments for fiscal year 2025, which begins on July 1, 2024, and ends on June 30, 2025. The council heard presentations from the Public Services Administration, Parks and Recreation, Organizational Equity, the Fire Department, the Downtown Development Authority and the Housing Commission. These presentations aimed to highlight each department’s needs as well as issues for City Council’s future consideration.
The meeting marks the beginning of the city’s budget development process, which will conclude when the council votes upon the adoption of the budget on May 20. The council will hold public hearings regarding the budget, ordinances and fee changes on May 6.
While some presentations discussed multiyear plans, the council can only adopt plans for one year at a time. In April, City Administrator Milton Dohoney Jr. will present his recommended version of the actual budget to the council.
Dohoney Jr. emphasized that these items are introduced with the knowledge that some of them will not make it into the budget due to financial constraints.
“I can tell you point blank that not everything you hear tonight will be in the budget,” Dohoney said. “That is mathematically impossible. We have this many needs. We have this much money. Our job is to make sure that it is balanced.”
The meeting began with a summary of the city’s financial status and expected future expenditures and revenue from Marti Praschan, Ann Arbor’s chief financial officer. She said the majority of Ann Arbor’s general fund revenues come from real and personal property taxes, which are determined by the city millage rates. These taxes are predicted to bring in $76 million for FY2024. For FY2025, the financial office also expects a 6% increase in property taxes which is projected to generate an additional $3.2 million.
Praschan emphasized that the Financial and Administrative Services Area made its predictions in the context of the state’s and country’s changing economic conditions.
“Our overall economy and the city state’s shared revenue is dependent on consumer spending,” Praschan said. “Although spending has remained strong through the inflationary period, we are seeing signs that spending is slowing down … debt has significantly increased and affordability is becoming an issue. Interest rates remain high, and stimulus and COVID savings have been exhausted. Therefore we are remaining cautiously optimistic in revenue forecasting.”
Departmental budget requests began with an outline of the Public Services Administration’s budgetary needs from Brian Steglitz, Public Services area administrator. Steglitz said public services needs funds to assess the condition and make repairs to Barton Dam, to organize the Ann Arbor Art Fair and to create a water distribution system model. He also discussed estimates for stormwater funding, sanitary sewer collection system funding, solid waste funding and snow removal.
Next, Derek Delacourt, Community Services area administrator, reviewed Ann Arbor’s Comprehensive Plan implementation and staffing capacity for planning. Delacourt said he was not proposing any immediate costs for the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan. However, he did note that two of Ann Arbor’s city planners have retired and proposed replacing them with three entry-level planners.
“We are losing two long-term staff planners that have about 57 years of experience between the two of them,” Delacourt said. “We have talked about and are proposing to replace those with three entry-level planners out of the general fund.”
Laura Orta, director of Organizational Equity, spoke about proposed initiatives to create OE ambassadors for each city department, modernize recruitment and implement city-wide, OE-certified diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility staff training. Orta, who is the city’s first director for the office — which was created in September 2022 — emphasized the importance of increased visibility and outreach.
“We need to create some branding,” Orta said. “So that’s something that we’re looking to do next year, and we are dedicated to participating in community events that will strengthen stakeholder engagement and a connectivity to the community that we’re still working to develop.”
Fire Chief Mike Kennedy said his most urgent funding request was for a second ambulance because of heightened demand for Fire Department emergency transportation. Kennedy said he was especially concerned with projected emergency transportation demands for the upcoming U-M football season.
“One of the bigger issues for this fall is this football season is going to be unlike what we have experienced before,” Kennedy said. “For many of these games, I have the strong desire to be able to put on additional rigs. We don’t have that capacity right now.”
Maura Thomson, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, reviewed plans for city parking system maintenance. Thomson said one focus area in FY2025 will be rooftop fencing replacements on all DDA facilities at an estimated cost of $1.4 million. The DDA has been previously criticized for parking structure safety issues, which have been the location of several suicides and near-suicides.
Jennifer Hall, executive director of the Housing Commission, presented the final budget requests for the evening. Hall said most of the AAHC’s funding does not come from the city budget, but there is still a concern regarding future external funding for AAHC resident services. AAHC resident services are largely paid for by Washtenaw County’s Public Safety and Mental Health Preservation Millage. However, the county may reissue this millage on the 2024 ballot and changes to the millage’s coverage are under discussion.
“If we do not (have) that millage, you have a very big impact on the properties that we have and the tenants that we work with,” Hall said.
Daily Staff Reporter Amanda Venclovaite-Pirani can be reached at amandavp@umich.edu.