Ann Arbor DDA Approves FY2012-13 Budgets

At its March 2, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority approved an operating budget for fiscal years 2012 and 2013. For FY 2012, the DDA is budgeting for $20,118,601 in total revenues – of that amount, $3,893,943 is forecast to come from tax capture, $16,162,752 from parking revenues, and $61,906 from interest earnings.

For FY 2012, budgeted expenses will exceed revenues by $512,727 – they total $20,631,328. Budgeted expenses do not include terms of a new parking agreement under which the DDA manages the public parking system for the city of Ann Arbor. The $1,010,930 city payment in the budget is based on the current arrangement between the city and the DDA under which the DDA pays the city proceeds from the old YMCA lot and the 415 W. Washington lot, plus around $800,000 for the city’s street repair funds – that’s related to the cost of maintaining on-street parking spaces.

So the DDA’s FY 2012 budget does not currently provide for the equivalent of an additional $2 million “rent” payment to the city, which is currently being negotiated by two “mutually beneficial” committees – one consisting of city councilmembers and the other consisting of DDA board members. A Feb. 28 meeting of the two committees – announced four days earlier – to discuss a draft of a new contract was canceled, when councilmembers Carsten Hohnke and Christopher Taylor were unable to accommodate the meeting, having just arrived back from their vacations. That meeting is now scheduled for March 7.

The DDA’s 10-year plan does factor in a new parking agreement with the city, under which all of the parking-related payments by the DDA to the city would come from a percentage of gross parking revenues. The percentage-of-gross numbers currently under discussion to be paid to the city are 14-15%, which would amount to a total payment of $2.26 million in FY 2012.

This brief was filed from the DDA boardroom at 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301. A more detailed report will follow.