Mayor: 3-Year Budget Is ‘Brutal’

With Mayor Jack O’Reilly’s three-year budget proposal to be introduced to Dearborn City Council on Friday, the questions are flying as to what city services are on the chopping block and what say residents will have in the budgeting process.

Expectations are that four of the city's eight pools, and the city’s health department are among the cuts, but O’Reilly confirmed Wednesday that police and fire staffing cuts–a move that would require a voter-approved ballot proposal to lower minimum staffing requirements­–is not being considered.

“I’m not looking at (lowering minimum staffing requirements), and the reason is, I’m a realist,” he said. “I’m not going to go out and ask people to vote to have less police officers.”

Instead, O’Reilly said, he hopes to put options on the table for closing the city’s $20 million budget deficit that will seem reasonable and fair to residents.

“The issues are huge, and we’re in unprecedented times,” he added. “We’ve got to keep our discussions simple and straightforward.”

Residents, however, have complained that the discussions have been too vague.

A Closer Look at Pools

One of those residents is Mark Lane, who is involved with the city’s Save Our Pools campaign. He said that the first time his group–or the Recreation Commission–heard of the possibility of closing pools this year was from local media, not from Mayor O’Reilly.

According to Lane, SOP member Ryan Woods went to the commission’s Tuesday night meeting and, when he inquired about the cuts, they said they hadn’t heard anything about it. Likewise, Lane said, his understanding was that the pools would stay open this year. He said SOP is bothered by the fact that the mayor didn’t speak up about the possible pool closures.

“I think that people know what our stance is. They know we want to save the pools,” he said. “Why hasn’t the mayor told us or given any indication of this?”

Lane added that he believes the city needs to look elsewhere for cuts than at a program with little costs and big results.

A comparison of 2009 and 2010 costs shows a 15 percent reduction in overall expenses for the city’s eight pools, including administrative costs. However, 2010 revenue was only up by 3 percent, resulting in a net loss of $272,337.

Of the $95,011 reduction in costs from year to year, payroll and utility charges accounted for $84,123 of that.

Pool tags sold dropped from 6,015 in 2009 to 5,385 in 2010; however, pool usage has steadily increased, going from 73,157 total visitors in 2008 to 78,246 in 2010. Additionally, a 2010 survey conducted by the Recreation Department showed that 41.6 percent of the 825 respondents said that they and their family used the outdoor pools.

According to Lane, closing four pools would only result in cost savings of just over $100,000–a number he believes doesn’t justify the cuts.

Mayor O’Reilly said by his count, the yearly number would be around a third of $1 million. Compounded over a decade, he added, the savings would be big.

Pools and library cuts, the mayor admitted, “are a very small portion” of the budget cuts. “But you have to add everything up together,” he said. “It’s change that lasts year after year. In other words, every year, that saves money.”

The Big Picture

A long-term strategy, O’Reilly said, is the goal to make Dearborn financially stable once again. Starting this year, all city budgets for departments and overall are running on three-year timetables.

But the cuts over time will get worse­, O’Reilly added, if new revenue streams aren’t realized. And other than a proposed increase of the current 13.65 to 15 mills, Friday’s proposed budget won’t include the possibility that higher taxes will help to close the gap.

“The budget right now won’t consider any revenue enhancement other than the 15 mills in the three-year projection, which is why it’s going to be a pretty ugly looking budget,” O’Reilly said. “Without additional revenue by the third year, it’s brutal.”

However, he added, Dearborn’s cuts are far behind what some Michigan cities are facing as their prepare their FY 2011-12 budgets–including entire library system closures, and police and fire cuts.

“We still, even at the third year, we’re not talking about police and fire,” O’Reilly said of Dearborn’s budget. “Other cities are already at a point that we’re not even going to reach in terms of the kinds of cuts. I think people have to have perspective on this.”

O’Reilly added that opportunities for public discourse on the budget will be plentiful, including special meetings and the next regularly scheduled City Council meeting, which takes place at 7 p.m. May 2 at .

“The budget will be given to the council on Friday the 15 and that starts the process,” he said. “But … there’s at least a month of debate that goes on before we make anything final.”

Dates for special meetings to discuss the budget were not immediately available. Check back with Dearborn Patch for updates.