The arbitration panel worked through the binding arbitration procedure for labor disputes in police and fire departments, which in Michigan is governed by Act 312 of 1969.

The new contract is retroactive for the period from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2013. In an email to The Chronicle, Tom Crawford, the city’s CFO, wrote that the panel’s determination does not include any liability for the city dating back to the start of the contract.

Highlights of the new deal include a redesigned health care plan which offer options for health care contributions, based on a calendar year. For single-person coverage, for example, the “low plan” would include no monthly premium but a $1,000 deductible. The “high plan” would include a 10% monthly contribution with a $300 deductible.

The new contract includes no across-the-board wage increases.

Pension contribution by employees would increase from 5% to 6% of pay on a pre-tax basis starting Jan. 1, 2012. Employees hired after Jan. 1, 2012 would not be vested in the pension program until 10 years, and their final average compensation (used to determine pension benefits) would be based on the last five years of service. Retirees would have an access-only type retiree health care plan with a retiree health care reimbursement account. Each employee would receive a one-time deposit of $500 in a health retirement account on Jan. 1, 2012.

John U. Bacon

If you’re not a Michigan football fan, you probably haven’t heard of Vada Murray, but you might have seen his picture. It’s one of those iconic images of Michigan football, along with Tom Harmon standing in his mud-soaked, torn-apart jersey, and Desmond Howard diving to catch a touchdown pass against Notre Dame.

But the photo I’m talking about shows Vada Murray and Tripp Welborne soaring skyward to block a field goal. They were a kicker’s nightmare. But even when they got a hand on the ball, it simply denied their opponent three points. That’s not the kind of thing that wins you a Heisman Trophy or an NFL contract. They don’t even keep records of those things.

But more than two decades later, something about that photo still resonates. Maybe it’s because it captures their effort, their intensity, their passion – all of it spent just to give their teammates a slightly better chance for success. There is something noble in that. And we recognize it – which is why they’ve been selling that photo at the frame store on Ann Arbor’s Main Street for years, right along side the legendary poses of Harmon and Howard.

Murray prepared for life after football. And, like a few other big-time athletes in town, he joined the Ann Arbor Police Department, where he rose to the rank of detective. Even students he busted for hosting parties years ago remember him fondly, which is saying something.

Whenever his former coach, Bo Schembechler, left town, he would tell Vada, “If anything happens to my home while I’m gone, I’m holding you personally responsible!” Bo picked the right man. His place was always safe.

Vada married Sarah, and together they were raising a beautiful family. Life seemed perfect. But three years ago, while he was taking a shower, Vada noticed his left love-handle was a little bigger than his right side. Vada, who had never smoked a cigarette in his life, had lung cancer.

When he gave a guest lecture for my students at the University of Michigan in late 2009, he started by saying, “I’m Vada Murray, and I’m dying of cancer.” If there’s a gutsier opening to a speech, I have not heard it. The students were stunned, and captivated.

But he didn’t dwell on it. He used it to point out how, if you’re a Michigan man in good standing, your football friends will come to your aid – and that’s exactly what they did. It wasn’t about football, he said. It was about family.

The police department proved to be another supportive family. But from people they didn’t know as well, they still had to endure the occasional well-meaning but misplaced comments. Things like: It will all work out. Everything’s for the best. God has a plan for you.

When I visited their home a few months ago, their youngest daughter was playing in Vada’s lap. Their middle child had her arm around Sarah and their oldest kid was playing in the backyard with a friend. Vada looked me in the eye and said, “If God’s plan is for me not to see my little girls grow up and walk down the aisle, you can tell God, his plan sucks.” We were all getting a little choked up at this point, but I couldn’t help but grin at that.

A few weeks ago, Sarah called me and said, “Vada can’t speak to your class this semester.” She didn’t have to say any more. I knew what she meant.

Vada passed away on Wednesday.

If you’re walking down Ann Arbor’s Main Street some day, doing a little window-shopping, you might want to take a moment to look at the photo in the frame store display. You’ll see what a man living fully looks like.

You don’t get to see that every day.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the Wall Street Journal, and ESPN Magazine, among others. He is the author of “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller, and “Third and Long: Three Years with Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines,” due out this fall through FSG. Bacon teaches at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

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.

The plan (not the budget per se) for FY 2011 will be adopted at the same time the FY 2010 budget is adopted. In that second year of the two-year plan, 14 firefighters, or the equivalent of one truck company, would make up the majority of the 22 eliminated positions. For this next year, 27 of the 34  positions proposed for elimination would come from law enforcement.

Fraser said that the intent was to avoid a scenario where demotions from lieutenant to sergeant and sergeant to patrol officer would take place, a situation where the newest, most enthusiastic recruits would be shed from the department. [The newest recruits are also the least highly compensated.] Instead, he said, the plan was to spend $4.8 million from the general fund reserve on an early-out retirement program. The reserve fund expenditure would bring the reserve down to 12%, putting it at the lower end of the recommended 12-15% range. Fraser said that 16-18 command officers might participate in the program, and that earlier in the day, the plan had received the support of the Ann Arbor Police Officer’s Association.

The materials provided to councilmembers on the mix of law enforcement positions to be eliminated were: 8 community standards, 6 command, 10 patrol, 1 dispatch, 2 clerical. However, Tom Crawford, chief financial officer for the city, said that the exact mix of those positions would depend on participation in the early-out program.

Fraser said that the reductions were possible because Barnett Jones, chief of safety services, had undertaken a restructuring of the police department to reduce the size of sergeant and lieutenant ranks to focus resources on patrol, with specialty patrols for housing and downtown areas covered by regular patrol officers. The reduction in community standards officers (who write parking tickets, among other things), would be facilitated by patrol officers supporting ticket enforcement.

Not discussed at the council working session was the potential dovetailing of reduced ticket enforcement resources on the city’s side, with the possible purchase of parking meter enforcement rights in the downtown area by the DDA – an idea that was floated at the last DDA board meeting by Rene Greff. Greff chairs the DDA board’s ad hoc committee formed to begin conversations about the parking agreement between the city and the DDA.

Councilmembers sought clarity on some of the more visible proposals for cuts, which would come in 2011, like the closing of the senior center and of Mack pool for the summer. Leigh Greden (Ward 3) and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) were concerned about whether adequate planning had been done to provide for transitioning to other areas for people who use those services. Jayne Miller, director of community services, said that for the senior center such transitioning would be provided – including on an individual basis. For the pool, there needed to be communication with the Ann Arbor Public Schools system, said Miller, to offer the possibility that the pool might stay open with the schools shouldering a commensurate part of the cost.

Fraser followed up Miller’s point on the school system, saying that in the coming week he hoped to finally reach a written agreement on how to jointly operate recreational ball fields with the schools. He indicated that the city had been working hard over the last five years to achieve an equitable and mutually beneficial arrangement, not just for the ball fields. Fraser said that overtures to the schools by the city in other areas had not yet yielded results.

In response to a query by Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), Fraser discussed another area of cost-saving that has not yet yielded dramatic results: regional cooperation. Higgins asked about the overall strategy of collaboration with other government entities in light of some of the proposed cuts for 2011, which she described as “rather unpalatable.” Fraser drew an analogy of government entities to neighbors who live next door, who just choose to live differently – even when it makes sense to collaborate. Two examples of progress offered by Fraser in that category were the city-county data center consolidation and agreements with surrounding townships and the city of Ypsilanti for firefighting response along the corridor between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti.

Sandi Smith wanted to know what happened to the discussion of increasing revenues that council had had during its budget retreat in January. Otherwise put, where does the city stand with respect to the request for a city income tax study? Fraser said that the state of Michigan was providing income levels for the city of Ann Arbor, and that employers were providing data for  employees who work in Ann Arbor, but who live outside the city limits. By the end of April, Fraser said, the work should be completed by Plante & Moran, the firm tapped to do the study.

Based on some of the specific items identified for cuts, even relatively small savings opportunities were identified in the proposed budget. For example, city clerk Jackie Beaudry, whose office would permanently lose a now-vacant .60 full-time position, identified the publication of council’s agenda in the local newspaper as a move that could save $15,000 a year. Beaudry said after the work session that council would need to change its rules in order to realize the savings. In relevant part, the council rules read:

The approved agenda for all meetings of Council, including Work Sessions, shall be published in a newspaper of general circulation in the City no later than the Sunday prior to each meeting, except those meetings called less than six days prior to a meeting.

The slides from the presentation at the work session are available here in .pdf format. A binder with the detail of the proposed budget will be available on the second floor of the Larcom Building and at the public library. For members of the public who would like own a copy, the cost for reproduction (which includes charts in color) is $26.36.

The April 14 town hall meeting on the budget, which will be held at CTN studios at 2805 S. Industrial, starts at 7 p.m.

Below we’ve reproduced the budget numbers, followed by some highlights identified by city staff in each year.

Recommended Expenditure Budget
Fiscal Year Budget
                                Adopted     Recommended       Projected
                                   2009            2010            2011
General Fund Expenditures
Police                     $ 27,195,233    $ 26,057,095    $ 27,188,966
Fire                         13,928,987      14,176,119      13,516,759
AATA                          9,741,489       9,636,345       9,135,256
Parks Forestry & Operations   4,225,101       4,132,898       4,063,921
Parks & Recreation            3,844,838       3,718,788       3,511,483
Finance                       4,143,302       3,956,114       4,016,264
Courts                        4,507,684       4,226,107       4,357,693
Planning & Development        2,104,163       2,611,699       2,592,084
Community Development         2,076,980       2,428,699       1,950,666
Public Services               2,179,171       2,105,899       2,017,628
Fleet & Facilities            1,287,695       1,316,428       1,599,240
Attorney                      2,082,710       2,041,949       1,988,580
City Clerk                      924,882         885,960       1,039,966
City Administrator              639,695         634,034         607,334
Mayor & Council                 343,502         348,917         350,740
Transfers/Other              10,332,730       6,887,892       5,664,680
  Total GF Expenditures**  $ 89,214,660    $ 84,816,026    $ 83,250,520

General Fund Revenues
Taxes                      $ 52,076,573    $ 51,492,881    $ 48,993,217
State-shared Revenue         10,756,613      10,827,062      10,827,062
Charges for Services          5,866,021       7,333,170       7,704,717
Fines & Forfeitures           6,182,365       5,131,420       4,861,882
Other                        14,333,088      10,413,505      10,481,630
  Total GF Revenues        $ 89,214,660    $ 85,198,038    $ 82,868,508

Net Surplus/(Deficit)      $          0    $    382,012    $   (382,012) 

Undesignated Fund Balance  $ 13,515,463    $ 13,897,475    $ 13,515,463 

     ** Adopted Budget subsequently amended to $90,791,514

_

FY 2010 Ann Arbor City Budget Highlights

General Fund 2010

POLICE

• Reduction in size of sergeant and lieutenant ranks to focus resources on patrol
• Specialty patrols (ie. housing, downtown, etc.) would be covered by regular patrol
• Community standards reduced with existing patrol supporting ticket enforcement
• Add a 3rd School Resource Officer / Reduce 1 Canine / Reduce vehicle fleet by 14
• FTE positions reduced by 27 (8 community standards, 6 command, 10 patrol, 1 dispatch, 2 clerical)

FIRE

• Reduce non-FTE expenditures and overtime

COMMUNITY SERVICES

• Mack pool will close down for the summer (only)
• Eliminate funding for Civic Band ($7k), Project Grow ($7k), & 1 GIS employee
• Reduce hours at Vets Park Fitness Center ($9k) & expand teen camp pilot
• Leslie Science Center becomes fully financially independent of the city ($31k)
• Rental Housing Inspection Fees – 3% increase

OTHER

• Eliminate publication of council agenda in newspaper ($15k)
• Reduce projected cost of employee compensation and benefits
• Energy savings / Reduced maintenance for LEDs ($29k)
• Service drive parking meter revenue, net of set-up costs ($380k)
• 4% Safety Services Fee from water utility ($787k)
• Loading zone permit fees & S. Industrial football parking revenue ($12k)
• Reduce 4.6 FTEs – 1 in Treasury (vacant), 2 in Courts (vacant), 1 in HR, and 0.6 in Clerks (vacant)

Non-general Fund 2010

Act 51 Funds/Weight & Gas Tax (Funds Right-of-Way Maintenance Activities)

• Anticipated revenue decrease [3% major roads, 5% local roads] ($345k)
• Extend street sweeping cycle from 5 to 8 weeks ($148k)
• Traffic calming reduction [50% or 1 program per yr.] ($28k)
• Extend gravel road grading cycle from 6 to 8 weeks ($40k)
• Reduction in overtime costs for snow removal ($65k)

Utility Funds (Water, Sanitary Sewer, Storm Water)

• 3.6% increase in water revenue requirements
• 1.6% increase in storm water revenue requirement
• 3.1% increase in sanitary sewer revenue requirements
• 4% Safety Service Fee to General Fund
• Planting of 600 trees for storm water benefit ($300k)

Other (Constraints of Diminished Tax Revenue)

• Reduction in Parks Maintenance & Capital Improvements Millage revenue by $65k
• Reduction in Greenbelt Millage revenue by $26k
• Reduction in Solid Waste Millage revenue by $135k

FY 2011 Ann Arbor City Budget Highlights

General Fund 2011

FIRE

• Reduce 14 FTEs in Fire ($1.1 mil.) – equivalent to 1 truck company

COMMUNITY SERVICES

• Reduce Human Services allocations by $260k
• Eliminate Historic District contract ($24k)
• Close or turn over Mack pool to AAPS ($59k)
• Eliminate 30 hours per week of seasonal assistant facility supervisor ($12k)
• Close senior center ($141k)
• Reduce 2.5 FTEs (1 in Parks & Rec., 1 Support Specialist in Planning Development, & 0.5 Planner)
• Rental Housing Inspection Fees – 3% increase

OTHER

• Eliminate contracted services for Park Ops. ($31k)
• Include 8 months of utility charges for Court/PD building ($184k)
• Reduce projected cost of employee compensation and benefits
• Increase revenue or reduce 1 FTE in FASA (financial services)
• Revenue: Service Dr. Parking Meter/Net of Maintenance Costs ($460k)
• Revenue: Energy Savings/Maintenance from LED Installations ($12,323)
• Expenditures: Energy Savings/Maintenance from LED Installations ($69,600)

Non-General Fund FY 2011

Utility Funds/Water, Sanitary Sewer, Storm Water

Revenue:

• 3.49% increase in Water Revenue Requirements (Operation & Maintenance Budgets held constant to accommodate capital requirements)
• 1.75% increase in Storm Water Revenue Requirement (Bonding for Capital Improvements)
• 3% increase in Sanitary Sewer Revenue Requirements (Operation & Maintenance Budgets held constant to accommodate capital requirements)

Expenditures:

• 4% Safety Service Fee ($813,750)

Other

• Reduce 3 FTEs in Construction Code Fund – 2 development services inspectors (1 vacant) & 1 support specialist
• Reduction in Parks Maintenance & Capital Improvements Millage revenue by $270k
• Reduction in Greenbelt Millage revenue by $117k
• Reduction in Solid Waste millage revenue by $607k