Whose Budget? Our Budget!
by Joanne Coutts
“The questions were many and good….there was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to…to stop it…the only people permitted to ask questions were those who never did.” Catch 22
Luckily for us the Detroit Community Outreach Ordinance of 2020 means that the City cannot apply Catch 22 to Detroiters who want to comment and ask questions about our budget. Even if you missed the series of District Community Budget Priorities Forums that took place over the past few weeks, you can still submit your comments and questions on our budget to yourbudget@detroitmi.gov
When is a survey not a survey?
To open the community engagement section of our budget process the City launched the 2020 Survey of Detroiters’ Budget Priorities in October. The problems with the survey were many and bad. Most glaringly, the survey had presupposed 5 “outcomes you need” and then presented respondents with limited, pre-written strategies to select from as “first,” “second,” and “lowest” priority. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the survey/not survey only produced 718 responses from Detroiters, that is 0.10% of our city’s population.
Who determined the “outcomes you need,” or the strategies to achieve them, is a question that has never been satisfactorily answered. If your priorities for outcomes or strategies were different from the options in the survey then, frankly, you were ish out of luck until…
The District Community Budget Priorities Forums
The Forums began with a presentation on the findings from the survey by Dr. Janet Anderson, Director of Outcome Budgeting, followed by…
Janet’s “Reasons Why Not”
For those of us who are concerned about education — well that is not in the City budget, it is in the State budget. When we express our concern about unemployment — out of luck, that is also not in the City budget, it is in the State budget. Many of us want more funding for the Libraries — again not the City’s responsibility, you pay a separate millage on your property taxes, (which as one astute caller noted “is repeatedly raided by [the] general fund” to pay for things other than libraries.) If you want to see a bigger budget for housing, health, transit — sorry, those things receive less money from the general fund because they are funded by grants. And, except for Federal formula grants, the City does not budget grants because it does not know if it is going to receive them.
So we leave housing, healthcare and transit, which as we shall see, are clear priorities for Detroiters, to the vagaries of the competitive grant funding and dedicate one third of our general fund revenue to the Detroit Police Department, which, as we will also see, is not.
To be fair, by the time we reached the last Forum in District 6, Dr. Anderson admitted, “General funds can be allocated to things that are currently/also grant funded. Many people prioritized things that are currently grant funded on the survey. We can allocate funds. They do not have to come from grants.”
Public comment
Housing and Police were by far the most commented on in each Forum, and in the Forums collectively, with the comments overwhelmingly in favor of increasing funding for housing…
“We definitely need more Home Improvement Grants for Detroit Homeowners. NOT Landlords or Investors.” “Major issue is homelessness.” “Quasi legal entities getting tax breaks, given to non-residents.” “Home repair grants is a top priority, $500K grants is not enough.” “Home repair grants are what people want.” “More money to housing.” “Grants for home repair and assistance with navigating grants, getting information out to elderly residents.” “My children have nothing to come back to all the houses gone.” “Put demolition money towards fixing houses before they get to the point of needing to be demolished.” “Not enough being done to attract homeownership among diverse young people with employment.” “Housing needs predictable, reliable sources of funding.” “Stop evictions.” “I just want to keep my house!”
And decreasing funding for the police…
“Push back against concept that crime prevention is a function of DPD. DPD reacts to crime, does not prevent.” “End facial recognition — not accurate or helpful in stopping crimes.” “Proper city programming alleviates crime.” “Less money to DPD.” “Zero DPD budget, review the line items. Let DPD apply for grants and use general fund for what people want like housing.” “Echo calls for defunding anti-Black technology like PGL [Project Greenlight] and facial recognition.” “Echo shifting money and resources towards services and away from DPD and incarceration.” “DPD is not crime prevention department.” “DPD uses racist facial recognition and militarization.” “Lots of money for taking care of people rather than imprisoning people. This can help prevent crime.” “Always taking money to lock people up rather than improving their material conditions.” “Need to cut DPD budget significantly.” “What can we do to get DPD to stop bullying homeless people?”
The current City budget is completely out of alignment with Detroiters’ priorities on these issues as illustrated in the comparison between actual and forecast police and housing budgets in the charts below:
Detroiters also prioritized parks and recreation, the environment, transit and hyper-local concerns in how we want our budget spent…
“Public parks make such a difference.” “Like to see City better enforce environmental permits for corporations.” “Improve sporadic, unreliable public transit.” “Trial and error to get around on DDOT. DDOT serves the whole city, not just midtown.” “Sidewalks!!!!!” “Plymouth Road bus route is terrible.” “Want a speed bump in the garden view estates…and a light on Joy Road.” “Gorham Playground on Pembroke and St. Marys need bathrooms.” “Pingree Park needs sidewalk repair.” “What can be done about the large tree that is uprooted on Greeley Street right off E. 7 Mile? I can email another photo of the disaster if necessary. Thank you!”
And provided some moments of levity. With all due respect to individual Detroiters concerns I give you a…
Department for the Birds
“The Rosa Parks transportation center downtown, needs to be cleaned up. There is bird droppings all over the place. That is very unsanitary. The city needs to clean it up. I have looked online at the cities [sic] website there is no department for that.”
“Not seeing amenities in terms of priorities for tax money, my neighborhood is inundated with cats.”
A Department for the Birds would address these issues in one fell swoop, or well-timed pounce, by relocating the inundating cat population to Rosa Parks Transit Center resulting in a decreased bird population and more sanitary conditions there. And addressing the budget priorities of at least two Detroiters.
What happens next?
On February 16, our budgeting process moves from expenses to income at the Revenue Estimating Conference. (Click here for more information and to get the zoom link to attend). On March 5, the Mayor will present his proposed FY22 budget to us and to City Council. Council will then hold public meetings to review, discuss and receive public comment on department-specific budgets. They will then send their changes to the Mayor. In early April, our budget will be approved by the Council and the Mayor and sent to the State Financial Review Commission. Our FY22 budget will take effect on July 1, 2021.
But wait! We already have a “Department for the Birds,” it is called the Detroit Police Department. Tell the City if you think DPD is “for the birds” and share your other priorities for our budget at yourbudget@detroitmi.gov #DefundthePolice #RefundourCommunity #whosebudgetourbudget
The Detroit Socialist is produced and run by members of Detroit DSA’s Newspaper Collective. Interested in becoming a member of Detroit DSA? Go to metrodetroitdsa.com/join to become a member. Send a copy of the dues receipt to: membership@metrodetroitdsa.com in order to get plugged in to our activities! Detroit DSA’s Defund the Police Committee meets weekly on Wednesdays at 7PM. Volunteer with our campaign by filling out this form.
