Ypsilanti budget includes 4 new police officers; long-term issues remain
Ypsilanti will increase its police force by three officers and retain all 17 firefighter positions in fiscal year 2014.
A new budget the Ypsilanti City Council approved Tuesday evening also includes funding for half of an officer dedicated to the city’s three downtown districts. The other half will be funded by the Ypsilanti Downtown Development Authority, pending approval by its board.
The cost of three new officers is approximately $60,000 each, and the city will pay for $40,000 of the dedicated downtown officer. The city previously had an officer dedicated to the DDA districts in 2010, but that officer was pulled off the beat and put on road patrol when staffing levels were reduced.
The Ypsilanti Fire Department has 15 firefighters but is beginning the process of hiring two more.
The city also will re-allocate $100,000 from the South Grove Road paving project to North Prospect Street's design engineering plan.
Those are the bright spots on the balanced budget city council unanimously approved.
But Council Member Pete Murdock continued to raise the same concerns he has throughout the budget process - the city will drain around $11 million in reserves over the next five years and he says nothing is being done to address that issue.
“From the perspective that we stemmed the tide of reducing public safety personnel, and maintained 17 firefighters in the fire department - there was talk about reducing them to about 14 - to that degree we’ve improved the situation,” Murdock said. “But we haven’t improved the situation overall budgetarily.”
The city is projecting its general fund expenditures of $14,212,947 for fiscal year 2014 to exceed its revenues by approximately $500,000. But Murdock noted that $1.5 million of those revenues are a transfer from its reserves, including its motor pool, workman's compensation fund and general fund balance.
Murdock said the city’s current five-year plan leaves it with close to no reserves after five years.
“In five years, all our reserves will be gone and (City Manager) Ralph Lange will have retired,” he said.
Ypsilanti has just over $13 million in its motor pool, workers' compensation fund and general fund balance. According to a five -ear plan presented by Lange in May, the workman's compensation and motor pool fund will be wiped out by the end of fiscal of year 2018 and the city will be left with $2.2 million in its fund balance.
The bulk of that is drained by Water Street debt.
The city owes $24,764,695 on the Water Street debt. To date, the city has paid $4.6 million of the debt. The payments, and interest rate, are expected to increase as the city continues to pay through 2031.
The next payment, $435,070, is due Nov. 1.
Comments
PattyinYpsi
Sat, Jun 22, 2013 : 2:28 p.m.
Kudos to the YDDA for picking up half the cost of a police officer dedicated to downtown patrols. That is smart and that is civic-minded.
TK2013
Fri, Jun 21, 2013 : 12:53 p.m.
Murdock is correct when he states that nothing is being done to correct the wholly unsustainable budget. Transfers in and out of various funds simply confuse the issue. If the article is factually correct, the general fund deficit is actually $2 million. Can't continue to do that for too many more years, can we? While I am thrilled with the decision to add additional police officers (the police department is horribly understaffed), I am not so thrilled that the city manager and his highly compensated staff have proven themselves incapable of creating a sustainable fiscal plan. Far too much time and resources have been expended on this ridiculous "hybrid" public safety plan. It's time for the city manager and his staff to develop a realistic, sustainable fiscal plan. If they continue to fail to do so, the city council must step in and replace them with legitimate financial professionals. Time is not on the city's side.
whatsupwithMI
Fri, Jun 21, 2013 : 1:16 a.m.
There isn't any doubt that the Water Street outcome is disappointing (understatement). However, there is huge and clear precedent for success for other mainly blue-collar Michigan cities doing just the same thing in terms of merging and re-purposing underused real estate. These places were a bit earlier in the real estate boom, and in locations with far more than Ann Arbor as a population draw (and their population draws didn't seem to spend their social lives pretending they didn't have fun in the neighboring town, as Ann Arbor is fond of doing). Bad luck is typically encountered by those inexperienced in a new field. Funny how that goes. However, as our entire *country* crashed due to this same bad "luck" at that time; it isn't just those old Ypsi city leaders that should accept blame.
Jay Thomas
Thu, Jun 20, 2013 : 8:09 p.m.
It was always absurd to spend that kind of money on Water Street and it created the hole Ypsi finds itself in. Good news on the cops, anyway.
pete
Thu, Jun 20, 2013 : 8:45 p.m.
That's what happens when amateur politicians decide they should really be real estate speculators, and start playing Monopoly with public money. No winners in that game.
deb
Thu, Jun 20, 2013 : 6:52 p.m.
Obviously Ypsilanti couldn't find some good public art to buy
brian
Fri, Jun 21, 2013 : 12:07 a.m.
Ha ha good one. I will say YPD has some of the finest officers.