City of Davison, Michigan

As we close out the year of 2005 and prepare for 2006 I think it does us well to look back at what we accomplished in 2005.

Our staff has done an excellent job of finding other revenue sources for delivering services.

Some of these sources are small, like a donation from a local business person to purchase night vision equipment for our Police Department.

Here you can see Lt. Gilbert looking at new night vision equipment.

Here is my amateur photography skills of Lt. Gilbert in a totally dark room. The actual view is a lot clearer, credit the blurriness to yours truly’s camera ability.

It also covers larger items like Well Head Protection Grants of over $100,000 or a grant from the Ruth Mott Foundation for the wood for the boardwalk for the Davison Area Regional Trail (DART) the meanders through Abernathy Region Park. This would also include the $25,500 that the city received from the Department of Homeland Security.

In total, the City of Davison staff brought in $263,770 of such creative funding. Way to go staff! (If you are keeping track at home, that brings our total to over 7.7 million dollars since 2002)

We also continued to change how we operate in day to day functions. In 2005 your team of employees has challenged themselves to work in a more efficient manor. These changes can add up, and they have, saving the city approximately $660,000. Some of the items we saved on was not purchasing a police car, re-bidding Waste Hauler contract and re-bidding our Insurance contracts. The largest item was from staff working with TTMPS and the MDEQ over the past few years get a direct discharge permit for the Skellenger Water Treatment Plant that was a huge savings in our Sanitary Sewer fees.

Our team has done an excellent job in 2005 and I can’t wait to see what we do in 2006.

The Davison Downtown Development Authority approved three exciting projects at last Wednesday’s meeting.

One of the reasons we started this bolg is we feel communication is very important, especially with accurate information. We want people to be informed.

The approved projects are:

1. The Downtown Davison Facade Grant Program will be offered to property and/or business owners for financial assistance with facade renovations facing Main St from Mill to Third St. Facade Grant Program Packets will be given to all property and/or business owners, in the Southwest Quadrant, in January 2006.

2. Renderings for the Southeast Quadrant will begin in January 2006.
Property/Business owners in the quadrant need to dream and visualize
the future look of their buildings. Jackie Hoist, architect for THA Architects, will guide owners through the process.

3. Staff will be working on organizing local contractors to remove the canopies south of Second St. through in-kind services. The goal is for canopy removal to be at no cost to the property/business owners. The Facade Grant Program may be able to assist with repairs to areas used to attach the canopies. Details will be available in the packets.

This has been a project that has been long in the works. Its exiting to be a part of the process to help our downtown become more attractive and welcoming. Main Street is the first impression of our community and we want to display our local business as best as possible.

The week between Christmas and New Years is an organizational week for me. I have already reviewed my half dozen phone messages and 56 emails. Now it is time to start organizing the layout for 2006.

As I lay my two foot by four foot 2006 calendar on a table and start color coding critical dates I see it’s time to start the 2006 budget. The City of Davison’s fiscal year is July to June and the budget process to build next year’s budget starts in January.

City of Davison Budget Format

The City staff has worked hard to make the budget document readable and understandable in many different ways. We understand that everyone that looks at this budget is not in the municipal finance business. Governmental budgeting is different in many ways to other budgeting done in the private sector or done at home. We hope to explain some basics of governmental budgeting and then advise the reader how to work through this budget.

The City Budget is probably the most important policy making instrument enacted by the Davison City Council. These documents set forth future goals and objectives as well as establish the level of City services. There have never been enough resources to satisfy all the demands or needs and wants inside the City’s scope of services. Resources are finite. Therefore, priorities must be set and the budget is the tool that City Council (with the assistance of City Staff) uses to allocate the available resources for the accomplishments of the City’s goals.

The City Council adopts a Resolution to establish the tax millage rate and then adopts the Budget by Ordinance. The Budget is a bottom line budget and not a line item budget.

Budget as a City Council Tool

The budget serves as two important and separate tools for the Davison City Council.

Budget as an Accounting Document
The City of Davison Budget acts as a framework for accountability of public funds. This is the most emphasized purpose of the city’s budget. This tool allows for the necessary accounting, controlling and auditing functions to proceed without confusion. This function shows how much funding is allocated for each purpose and is used to measure actual spending during and after the fiscal year.

Budget as Policy Tool
The City of Davison Budget is also a policy setting tool. The City Council, by adopting the budget, spells out the type, level and quality of services that it will provide during the fiscal year. This is where the City Council allocates financial resources and converts it to specific output (e.g. how many miles of street are plowed or salted in a given year).

We at the City of Davison, think in order to be an effective document, the budget must be aesthetically easy to decipher. Budgets can be overwhelming with the amount of funds that are normally found in a municipality our size and provide the amount of services that we do. Therefore, we will not only use the numbers by fund and type, but also use narratives and graphs to show visual harmony among the elements within the budget.

City of Davison Budget Process

The State of Michigan Constitution sets some budget requirements down (e.g. requiring the City to have Public Hearings). The City Charter sets specific dates and procedures to be followed (e.g. the city manager shall submit an itemized budget to the City Council in May). The budget process is actually a five to six month process with different people involved in the process at different times. Our municipal budget is both an art and a science.

Budget as an Art
Part of developing the city budget that is more of an art is all the estimation that goes into the process. Department Heads all predict different revenue streams that they see for the next year. An example would be how many building permits are going to be issued. Department Heads also predict different costs that they foresee in the upcoming year. Some of theses forecasts are built around past experience and others use different forecasting tools. Estimating the amount of overtime is often challenging. How much time are our police officers going to spend in court on their off time? How much snow is going to fall during our off hours so that our DPW is working overtime?

Where our department heads have their own techniques to get these estimated numbers, a lot of the actual figures deal with outside sources. Revenues from the State of Michigan have continuously changed over the past five years. Un-funded or under-funded Federal or State mandates are another unpredictable source that creates challenges for budgeting.

Budget as a Science
The part of the budget that is more predictable is the hard numbers that can be counted on.

On the revenue side of the equation we have items such as Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs), grants, contracts, etc…that are a set number.

Expenditures have items like union contracts that can spell out wages for years to come. There are also purchases of specific items that are more concrete, or contracted services that are spelled out in advance.

Well this blog seems to be running long, so I will close with our budget time line as it is normally laid out.

January
Normally, around January, Department Heads start the process of budget forecasting. This process requires forecasting the known or estimated yearly revenues and expenses for their departments. Also, in late January or February the City Council holds a Goals and Objectives Retreat to discuss the long-term vision for the City; as well as reachable goals, projects and services the Council wishes to complete within the year. During this process we also look back over the previous year to rate the progress or status of previous objectives.

February
Goals and Objectives lay the framework for policy for the upcoming year. Department Heads then take the information and mesh it with their on going operations to format the original budget numbers.

Staff meets with City Council to review projects and policies, and fine-tunes the numbers at the direction of City Council during workshops.

March
Treasurer prepares current year to date financials and estimates revenue numbers.

Workshops continue to keep City Council informed on budget progress.

April
Department Heads turn in their final budget requests to the City Manager.

City Manager and City Treasurer work through the budget with Department Heads and make final determinations of appropriations for final budget preparation.

City Manager and City Treasurer prepare final budget.
Intergovernmental Agreement Task Force meets to review value of joint ventures.

May
City Manager presents City of Davison Budget to City Council.

June
City Council holds Public Hearing on Budget
City Council adopts City Budget
City Council sets the millage rate for budget year

Our office is closed today for the Christmas break and will reopen on Tuesday, December 27th.

We here at city hall wish all you and your families a Merry Christmas, and I’ll blog more next week….

Judge Connover brought up the crimes he sees that come before him from other areas versus what he sees from the Davison area at our quarterly “Tri-Unit meeting Monday night. According to the Judge, we live in one of the safest area in the county.

Its ironic that a day later the Detroit News does an article on the rising violent crime rate in Detroit (up 20%), Flint (up 25%), Lansing (up 21%), and Sterling Heights (up 20%). So I ask Lieutenant Dave Gilbert, of Davison’s finest, if he has seen an increase in violent crime in the City of Flags? He answered with a question “Didn’t we pass an ordinance against that?” But in reality our crime rate has not gone up.

There are a couple of reasons for a low crime rate. One is the people who live and work in this area. When people care about others, care about their own property, and have respect for others we have a much more civil society.

But, we are human, and we don’t live in a protective bubble. So the second part of the equation is a well trained, visible, motivated police department. We can always make improvements to everything we do, but in the mean time we are in good hands with our brave men who wear the shield on their blue uniforms.

Today is the first official day of winter. Darn that global warming….

Here in davison it has been winter like for over a month. The Department of Public Works (DPW) can attest to that. We have logged almost 285 hours on snow removal and salting this year already. Some of that is on straight time, but some is also in the middle of the night on over-time (time and half).

This puts our labor cost at about $15,000 before winter actually starts.

We have also put over 200 tons of salt down to help keep the roads as safe as we can. That cost is about $5,000.

So with out the cost fuel we have already spent $20,000 on our snow removal budget. We normally budget around $44,000 for these services. So if you see Scott Yaklin (DPW Director) sweating, it’s because he is probably nervious about his winter maintenace budget.

I often see the day shift police officers as they leave the department for another day of unknowns in our community. Today I had a chance to talk to Patrolman Matt Banks, a ten year veteran of our department. Matt was real enthusiastic about training that two of our other officers are going to attend called the Bullet Proof Mind.

This is a seminar given by retired Lieutenant Colonel Grossman, who is a internationally recognized motivational speaker. After reading the Colonel’s biography I can see how eight hours with this guy could speed by.

Friday was the City of Davison’s annual employee recognition luncheon. This is where city officials recognize the mile stone dates for employees of the city.

Our city clerk, Cindy Payton, is responsible for this event and transformed our council chamber into a more festive venue for the occasion.

Employees enjoy the
annual lunch buffet.

This is an event where the Mayor and Council Members honor employees who have worked for the city for 1-5-10-15-20-25 and 30 years. At today’s lunch six people were honored.

• 1 year for Brian Gist of the Department of Public Works
• 5 years for Corey Sherosky from the Police Department
• 10 years for Dennis Miller our Director of Building/Assessing and Planning Department
• 10 years for Matt Banks from the Police Department
• 10 years for Carol Price from our Police Department
• 25 years for Matt Sytek from the Department of Public Works

Carol Price receives recognition

from Mayor Rappuhn

Officer Matt Banks listens

to the Mayor

Matt Sytek has worked for the

City of Davison for over 25 years

Longevity is a two way street. It means employees are dedicated to the community they serve and it also means that the City Council does things that keep employees happy to make a career here in the city of flags.

I was talking to an “old timer” (life long Davison resident) last week and he ask me; “Pete, I hear people say we need to widen Main Street, but why?”

This is a great question and one we have been mulling over for some time. We have diagonal parking in our “downtown” area on both sides of the street. What occurs is a tunneling effect when both sides of the street get filled up with cars and trucks.

There is good news with this situation, it actually helps keep traffic speeds down due to people knowing how dangerous it can be without proper road width and parked cars backing out blindly into moving traffic.

One thing we try to keep in balance is the traffic calming effect with the actual danger that is involved. What you can see in the picture is actual size of the lane. You can see this because of the tracks in the snow. It just struck me as I was downtown today and I watched cars wait there turn to drive opposite directions. They would wait for the other car to pass the go, but were not able to have two cars go the opposite direction at the same time.

When full size vehicles (or larger extended cab trucks with full beds) are parked downtown we actually only have a lane and a half for traffic. Now throw an even larger vehicle into the mix (like a fire truck), this could be a major issue.

So how do we keep the traffic calming, but maintain a safe and drivable Main Street? This has been the discussion at many public meetings and workshops. These meetings included elected officials, business owners, professional consultants, residents, and staff. Many ideas were discussed. Some included:

• going to parallel parking.
• One sided parallel one sided angled.
• parallel parking with a small boulevard.

But most people wanted to keep the traditional angled parking. We have a wide right of way on Main Street (building to building). The engineers felt that if we gained just over two feet it would give us the travel space needed and still have the same traffic calming effect.