Ypsilanti will increase its police force by three officers and retain all 17 firefighter positions in fiscal year 2014.
A new budget the Ypsilanti City Council approved Tuesday evening also includes funding for half of an officer dedicated to the city’s three downtown districts. The other half will be funded by the Ypsilanti Downtown Development Authority, pending approval by its board.
The cost of three new officers is approximately $80,000 each, and the city will pay for $40,000 of the dedicated downtown officer. The city previously had an officer dedicated to the DDA districts in 2010, but that officer was pulled off the beat and put on road patrol when staffing levels were reduced.
The Ypsilanti Fire Department has 15 firefighters but is beginning the process of hiring two more.
The city also will re-allocate $100,000 from the South Grove Road paving project to North Prospect Street's design engineering plan.
Those are the bright spots on the balanced budget city council unanimously approved.
But Council Member Pete Murdock continued to raise the same concerns he has throughout the budget process - the city will drain around $11 million in reserves over the next five years and he says nothing is being done to address that issue.
“From the perspective that we stemmed the tide of reducing public safety personnel, and maintained 17 firefighters in the fire department - there was talk about reducing them to about 14 - to that degree we’ve improved the situation,” Murdock said. “But we haven’t improved the situation overall budgetarily.”
The city balanced its general fund expenditures and revenues at $14,212,947 for fiscal year 2014. But Murdock noted that $1.5 million of those revenues are a transfer from its reserves, including its motor pool, workman's compensation fund and general fund balance.
Murdock said the city’s current five-year plan leaves it with close to no reserves after five years.
“In five years, all our reserves will be gone and (City Manager) Ralph Lange will have retired,” he said.
Ypsilanti has just over $13 million in its motor pool, workers' compensation fund and general fund balance. According to a five -ear plan presented by Lange in May, the workman's compensation and motor pool fund will be wiped out by the end of fiscal of year 2018 and the city will be left with $2.2 million in its fund balance.
The bulk of that is drained by Water Street debt.
The city owes $24,764,695 on the Water Street debt. To date, the city has paid $4.6 million of the debt. The payments, and interest rate, are expected to increase as the city continues to pay through 2031.
The next payment, $435,070, is due Nov. 1.