Pointes Fiscal Budgets Harder to Balance

Tis the season for budget discussion, which in the Pointes brings hard decisions for the 2011/2012 fiscal year. Representatives from the Pointes have said they've already trimmed the fat in the last several years to balance the dwindling budget.

This year is likely to get harder and call for deeper cuts as the taxable value of homes and commercial properties continue to fall, which is the main source of revenue and funding for Michigan municipalities. The property value assessments are likely going to start arriving to homeowners soon and the news isn't what most would like.

According to figures handed down by Wayne County to each of the Pointes, the residential values will drop by about: 5.5 percent in the ; 4.2 percent in the ; 10 to 12 percent in the ; and 6.8 percent in the . In the , 5.5 percent in the Wayne County portion and about 12.7 percent in the Macomb County portion. 

The decreased values are leaving the municipalities in a variety of situations. City of Grosse Pointe manager Pete Dame told council last week he anticipates a $400,000 shortfall based on the dropping values and the decrease in state funding. The Park expects about $300,000 deficit, said Park Treasurer Jane Blahut. 

"It's challenging because this isn't a one-time reduction," Farms City Manager Shane Reeside said. "It's been going on for the last three or four years."

While official budget talks have yet to begin, representatives of each of the Pointes are already preparing and trying to come up with ideas to help balance their budgets.

Additionally, the economic plan shared by Gov. Rick Snyder during his first state of the state address recently may have an affect in the Pointes. Part of Snyder's economic plan is to consider municipalities willingness to consolidate and share services where appropriate. This consideration will factor into how state funding is dispersed, according to his state of the state.

Talks have been in the works for years in the Pointes regarding consolidation. The term has gained the most attention when involving police and fire services. Snyder's requirement might be enough to catapult the Pointes into action on at least one area of consolidation: a centralized emergency dispatch, said Woods City Administrator Al Fincham said. 

Completely independent of Snyder's recent mention of it, an ad hoc committee made up of the city managers and city mayors has been meeting for quite some time in the Pointes, Fincham said. Most recently the directors of public safety for each of the Pointes have been invited to join to discuss consolidation efforts. 

The committee has already met twice this year and has yet another meeting the first week of March, Fincham said. 

"It's imperative that it happens sooner than later," Fincham said. "It's the right thing to do. It's the prudent thing to do."

While consolidation has been a sensitive word in the Pointes, because no one wants to lose their excellent services, like quick police response times, officials are not aiming to eliminate services in this extremely tight budget year. 

Instead, they are all looking for ways to maintain services and benefits to the residents, which is after all why many people live in the Pointes. Officials say they want to maintain the quality of life and what sets the Pointes apart from other communities to retain residents as well as attract new ones. 

Centralized dispatch would reduce the necessary staff from a minimum of five to two, but it would also decrease the costs of maintenance and equipment, Fincham said. Rather than having five fully equipped and staffed dispatch centers, one would serve all of the Pointes.

Making it happen isn't as easy as it sounds, however, because the dispatchers in the Pointes handle emergency and non-emergency calls as well as monitor prisoners when they exist in each of the five Grosse Pointe lockups. 

So part of the discussion for consolidated dispatch requires consideration of prisoner handling and oversight, Fincham said. 

In the City, city manager Pete Dame told council last week, his goal is to be creative and proactive to come up with solutions that will benefit not only the residents but also the city.

Dame sought permission from the council to begin serious conversations with city employees about ways to become more efficient without compromising the services to the residents.

One of Dame's ideas is to change the mutual aid agreement among the Pointes and Harper Woods to automatic aid. Currently under the mutual aid agreement, firefighters from the respective Pointe respond to an emergency first, and if they need assistance they call for back up by the other Pointes and Harper Woods. 

With automatic aid, Dame said, the crews from all of the departments who are part of the package respond immediately. While it doesn't sound like a significant change, it would help eliminate unnecessary overtime for the cross-trained police and fire responders.

Minimum staffing levels in the City for acting as a full response fire department require that at least four firefighters be available at all times. The City must maintain that number around the clock but under an automatic aid, the City could count firefighters from the other departments toward the minimum staffing requirements. 

The move would not eliminate the number of patrol offices from the road, but would allow the city to save on overtime, Dame told council.

Dame is also looking at ways to consolidate in solid waste by simply changing routes, altering the frequency of pick up for businesses and other ideas. 

In the Park, city officials are awaiting the return of a survey sent to residents in which they are asked to rank city services in order of importance. Park officials want to use this to help guide their budget talks and decisions.

Woods Mayor Robert Novitke said some of the simple consolidations he would like to see include leaf pickup or snow removal on multi-municipality streets. For example, rather than the Shores and the Woods each paying a worker to clear snow from Roslyn, Hampton and Hawthorne roads, allow one or the other to complete the entire road. 

Individually, this wouldn't have a significant impact, Novitke said, but if the cities start thinking this way across the board it would provide cost containment that each of the cities need.

 Fincham is also asking all employees to give ideas about how to make departments more efficient. They understand where monies can be saved for their department more than anyone else, he said, noting the Woods has already been in a hiring and wage freeze since 2009. The Woods has reduced its full time workforce through attrition by 12.

Another idea from Fincham is to seek cost recovery for specific services, he said, explaining officers have responded to 690 false alarms in two years. The expense of those responses currently falls on the general public, but Fincham said if the city put a fee in place for such responses, it would be limited to those who use it.

The Farms, recently recognized for outstanding financial record-keeping in an annual audit, has anticipated the repeated loss in funding, Reeside said. 

"It's forced us as a city to evaluate the efficiency," he said. "We are a much leaner and efficient operation."

Similarly to the other Pointes, the Farms has been able to reduce its workforce through attrition and "because of the creativity and hard work by the department heads," Reeside said. 

"We're getting to a level that we must start cutting to the bone," Reeside said. "City council has the challenge to continue services at the same level that helps differentiate us with other communities."

Although the figures determined by the county are not set in stone, each of the Pointes have Board of Review hearings planned next month. The Board of Review is a group of local experts hired to hear residential and commercial property appeals.

This is the process in which residents or commercial property owners can argue to have their value changed based on evidence they present. The experts are relied upon to evaluate the information provided against their knowledge of the market and rule on the appeals. 

The final numbers and budget figures will be determined after the review process is complete. Municipalities new fiscal year begins July 1, meaning budgets must be passed before then.