Stories indexed with the term ‘city budget’

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (Dec. 7, 2009) Part I: Based on dialog at the city council’s budget retreat on Saturday, and the absence of any action at Monday’s council meeting to prevent it, layoff notices to 14 firefighters will be sent sometime this week.

Mayor John Hieftje also gave some additional detail on a proposal he’d mentioned at the council’s budget retreat on Saturday: an across-the-board wage cut of 3% for all city employees, which would include councilmembers.

Though the topics of firefighters and wage cuts were mentioned during the council’s communications section of the meeting, what pushed the meeting to nearly midnight were deliberations on two resolutions: (i) a three-year reduction of the Percent for Art program to effectively a “Half-Percent for Art” program, and (ii) acceptance of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP).

Both resolutions passed, though the HRIMP resolution was heavily amended. The material effect of the amendment was that it was not technically “accepted” by the council, but rather remanded to the city’s park advisory commission and the environmental commission. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council Sunday caucus (Dec. 6, 2009): At the Sunday night caucus of the Ann Arbor city council, looming budget decisions were front and center as topics, just as they’d been the previous day at the council’s day-long retreat. [Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor City Budget: Cuts Begin Now"]

Residents who attended the caucus expressed concerns about probable firefighter layoffs, possible threats to city parks, and a Monday meeting agenda item approving $895,000 for an accounting system overhaul. In responding to residents, councilmembers mentioned an idea that Mayor John Hieftje had briefly floated at the council’s budget retreat: an across-the-board wage cut of 3% for all city employees.

Besides the accounting system overhaul, the other Monday meeting agenda item residents spoke about was the council’s “acceptance” of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan. Representatives of the Huron River Watershed Council encouraged the council to accept the plan. That discussion led to the topic of the city’s Percent for Art program and its legal status. The council has an item on its Monday agenda to reduce the percentage reserved from 1% to a 0.5%.

On the council side, the caucus was attended by Hieftje, Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Mike Anglin (Ward 5), Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3). [Full Story]

Unless he receives other direction from the Ann Arbor city council at its Dec. 7 meeting, city administrator Roger Fraser told councilmembers at their Saturday budget retreat that he’ll begin implementing a plan to trim around $3 million out of the current fiscal year budget.

The moves are necessary to balance the FY 2010 budget, which ends June 30, 2010.

Some of that trimming is a matter of accounting for one-time savings – $500,000 had been budgeted for the Pfizer tax refund, but was settled last year so won’t be on the books for FY 2010. Other trimming is a matter of accepting current situations and committing to them going forward, for recurring savings – for example, vacancies from excess reductions of police through the early-out retirement incentive would not be filled.

But some of the trimming would entail cutting positions currently filled – 14 firefighter positions, which account for around $400,000 of the $3 million to be saved in FY 2010. The move to eliminate firefighter jobs had been part of the FY 2011 plan, but would be implemented six months earlier – now.

For FY 2011, the picture gets even worse, with the city facing a $5.4 million shortfall. And looking ahead one year after that, city council will be faced with constructing a budget for FY 2012 that is 30% smaller than the one they approved for FY 2009. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council Meeting (Nov. 16, 2009) Part II: The length of Monday’s city council meeting, which did not adjourn until nearly 1 a.m., might be blamed on the lengthy public commentary and deliberations on downtown zoning and design guidelines.

But it would have been a long meeting even without the downtown planning content, which we’ve summarized in a separate report: “Downtown Planning Process Forges Ahead.”

Before postponing the acceptance of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP), the council got a detailed update on how things stand on the city’s dispute with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) over Argo Dam.

An agenda item authorizing capital improvements in West Park prompted a lengthy discussion of how the Percent for Art program works.

Some public commentary calling abstractly for greater support for inventors and entrepreneurs was followed later in the meeting by an appropriation from the city’s LDFA to Ann Arbor SPARK to fund more business acceleration services.

A consent agenda item on the purchase of parking meters was pulled out and postponed.

The council also heard a detailed report from the city administrator, which covered emergency response time to a recent house fire, ADA-compliant sidewalk ramps, responses to the library lot Request for Proposals, updates on the task forces for Mack Pool and Ann Arbor’s senior center, staff reductions in planning and development, the East Stadium bridges, as well as the upcoming budget retreat on Dec. 5.

Stephen Kunselman’s (Ward 3) use of attachments to the agenda to document questions for city staff received some critique.

Also worth noting, the five winners of recent council elections were sworn in, and Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) was elected as mayor pro tem. Those topics in more detail below. [Full Story]

There aren’t many meetings you can attend where some of the pre-meeting conversation goes like this: “I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on!”

Swimmers can get away with that kind of banter, and swimmers of all sorts showed up Thursday night to talk about what the city should do to keep Mack Pool open. The public meeting was held at the media center of the Open School @ Mack, just down the hall from the pool – but far enough away to smell only the faintest whiff of chlorine.

Closing Mack Pool, or turning it over to the Ann Arbor school system, was one of the options proposed by city administrator Roger Fraser at an April 13, 2009 council working session, as a way to help balance the city’s budget in the face of declining revenues projected for 2010 and 2011. There’s about a $100,000 shortfall between what it costs to run the pool each year and the revenues it takes in. Figuring out how to make up that difference is the goal of the Mack Pool Task Force, which hosted Thursday’s meeting. [Full Story]

Shucking off raincoats and shaking rain off their umbrellas as they entered, about 50 people gathered Friday afternoon at the Ann Arbor Senior Center to get an update from city staff on the center’s fate, and to give feedback on ways to keep it open.

The meeting was the first of two scheduled by a city task force convened to address a budget crunch that had prompted city staff to recommend closing the center. The next public meeting is set for Tuesday, Oct. 27 from 6:30-8:30 p.m., also at the Burns Park facility, 1320 Baldwin Ave.

Closing the center seems a less certain scenario now, based on comments from staff and task force members. The focus is on finding ways to increase revenues, Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation services manager, told the group.

“The fact that so many people came out today shows how important the senior center is,” Smith said. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (Sept. 21, 2009): Ann Arbor’s city council approved both major development projects on its agenda, one of them enthusiastically, the other only reluctantly.

Although there was a smattering of opposition expressed to the Near North affordable housing development during the public hearing on the matter, the 39-unit project on North Main Street ultimately won the support of its closest neighbors. That support was reflected symbolically when developer Bill Godfrey and neighbor Tom Fitzsimmons stood side-by-side at the podium as they each addressed the council, which gave the project its unanimous approval.

The “matter of right” City Place project proposed for the block of South Fifth Avenue just south of William was also unanimously approved by the council, but councilmembers took turns criticizing both the project and the developer, Alex de Parry. The council had previously established a historic district study committee and enacted an associated moratorium on demolition and work in the area where the proposed project is located. Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) compared de Parry’s decision to bring the project forward despite the moratorium to “stamping feet, being upset you didn’t get what you wanted.”

Many members of the audience held yellow 8×11 paper signs calling on councilmembers to support a resolution that would have released council emails sent during their meetings dating back to 2002. However, council rejected that resolution except for a resolved clause that would in the future provide the public with copies of electronic communications among councilmembers during its meetings – by appending them to the official minutes of the meeting that are eventually posted on the city’s website.

The council also put looming financial issues on the radar by passing a resolution that opposes a recent Michigan budget proposal that would cut state shared revenues to the city of Ann Arbor by about $1.2 million. At the council’s budget and labor committee meeting that was held Monday – before the regular council meeting – Tom Crawford, the city’s chief financial officer, floated some possible ideas for meeting that shortfall. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council Sunday caucus (May 3, 2009): Counting the mayor, there were four members of council who heard from citizens on Sunday night on topics that included the closing of Mack Pool, accessibility to information on planning, and the new underground parking garage. After hearing from citizens, caucus concluded without councilmembers engaging each other on any work of council as they sometimes do. [Full Story]

At Monday night’s city council working session, city administrator Roger Fraser introduced a recommended budget for fiscal year 2010 (beginning July 2009)  of about $85 million, down from the almost $91 million budget in FY 2009. Declining revenues from property taxes, together with increasing contributions to the pension fund means that for FY 2010, the equivalent of 34 full-time positions at the city  would be eliminated, followed by 22 full-time positions in FY 2011. If implemented, the cuts would reduce the city workforce from 800 to 746 by 2011 – a number that has declined from a peak of 1,005 city workers in 2001.

A range of other recommendations include closing Mack pool for the summer, eliminating funding for the civic band and Project Grow, and increasing the water utility’s safety services fee by 4%.

The timeline for the budget’s adoption will include an April 14 town hall meeting at 7 p.m. at the CTN studios on South Industrial. That will be followed by public hearings on May 4, with council adopting a budget with any amendments on May 18. If council fails to act on the budget or to amend it by its second meeting in May, then per the city charter, the budget as submitted by the city administrator is automatically adopted.

The park advisory commission will hold a public hearing next Tuesday, April 21, on the recommendations related to parks, before voting on its recommendation. [Full Story]