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New Council Tackles Budget

New Council Tackles Budget image
Parent Issue
Day
9
Month
May
Year
1975
Additional Text

Adoption of an Ann Arbor city budget for 1975-76 is the single most important task facing the recently elected mayor and city council. The budget process will be the first test of the tri-partisan body's ability to work out the necessary compromises for changing the City Administrator's proposed budget.

With Democrats, Republicans, and HRP each lacking a majority on the council, bi-partisan support will be necessary for any budget changes. Most political observers expect Council Democrats to seek a coalition with HRP's Kathy Kozachenko to amend the budget. However, Mayor Wheeler has suggested that he will be looking for GOP support on budget changes instead. Whether he will be able to get that support is questionable.

Though there is no consensus on the council about what changes to make in the Administrator's budget, no one seems to be very happy with it either, including the Administrator himself.

"Limited revenues prevent us from presenting to you a budget designed to increase services to the citizens," stated City Administrator Sylvester Murray in his budget message to council. Murray's budget would lay off scores of city employees, housing inspectors, park maintenance people, clericals, and a human rights investigator.

While Mayor Wheeler and city council Democrats were preoccupied with the fight over certification of the mayor's race, the Human Rights Party was developing its own alternative budget proposal.

"The City Administrator's budget means an inevitable decrease in city services," stated HRP City Councilwoman Kathy Kozachenko in the message accompanying her budget amendments. "The truth of the matter is that city hall is fat with administrators, directors, supervisors, and foremen."

The HRP budget proposal would cut back administrative expenses in city hall by eliminating some 25 managerial positions, and trimming the salaries of 28 top executives by amounts ranging from $770 to $8,700.

With the money saved, the HRP plan would eliminate most of the scheduled layoffs, create 24 new service-type jobs, and provide several hundred thousand dollars for human service programs-day care, legal aid, health care, as well as continuing the city's anti-rape program and upgrading unemployment compensation for city workers.

At the May 5th public hearing on the budget, most of the 25 speakers called for increased city services, and many endorsed the HRP budget proposal. "Housing code violations in Ann Arbor are numerous and many of them are dangerous," according to Robert Leventer, speaking for the Ann Arbor Tenants Union. He urged adoption of HRP's budget amendment increasing the number of housing inspectors, as well as use of stiff fines for violators to pay for additional inspectors.

Others at the two-hour hearing spoke in favor of funding for the Free People's Clinic, Ozone House, senior citizens' recreation programs, human rights enforcement, anti-rape programs, and park maintenance.

Over the next week and a half, city council will be holding a series of working sessions to review the budget. Any changes in the budget will have to be made during this period.