In an unprecedented move, the Detroit City Council today voted unanimously for a budget that would layoff more than 700 police and fire fighters, reduce bulk pickup collection and eliminate half of the city's neighborhood city halls.
The vote by the traditionally pro-labor council also sent a strong signal to the city's unions that they will need to make massive concessions as part of the budget.
Members of the often contentious body said they had little choice but to band together and recast Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's budget, which they said was so full of holes and unrealistic assumptions that they had little confidence it would be balanced.
DETROIT NEWS
By Judy Lin
Detroit City Council unanimously voted to cut more than $90 million from the police and fire department budgets and impose a 10 percent salary cut on workers. Police estimate 612 officers will be dismissed along with 120 fire personnel. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said the budget would badly compromise public safety and vowed to veto it. Council also scrapped the mayors plan for a prepared food tax and property transfer tax, and restored money for food inspections and the city airport. Whose budget plan do you prefer?
The City Council handed Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick a balanced budget Tuesday, but the mayor promptly denounced it, saying public safety would be so badly compromised that it could resurrect the city's reputation as murder capital of the world.
Declaring they had no choice given Detroit's fiscal crisis, the eight council members unanimously voted to cut more than $90 million from the police and fire department budgets and impose a 10 percent salary cut on workers. Police estimate 612 of some 2,800 officers will be lost, along with 120 fire personnel.
Kilpatrick promised a veto of the council's plan and said city attorneys will be exploring whether it violates union agreements, the federal government's current oversight of the Police Department or the city's charter.
"It's the most irresponsible thing I've seen -- ever," Kilpatrick said.
But the council said an earlier budget proposal by Kilpatrick failed to realistically address the city's looming $302 million budget deficit -- and the eventual threat of a state takeover of the city's finances if no agreement is reached to cut spending. Council members say they believe they have the votes to override the mayor.
The council's budget effectively forces some of the pay and benefit concessions that Kilpatrick has been trying unsuccessfully for months to negotiate with union leaders for the 2005-06 budget year beginning July 1.
Earlier this month, the Kilpatrick administration said it planned to lay off workers in June if union leaders failed to agree on concessions, either for days off without pay or a share of spiraling health care costs. Kilpatrick said Tuesday his layoffs would not be nearly as bad as the council's.
While the administration warned that police precincts and additional fire stations would have to close, all the council members stood together in urging the mayor and police chief to cut bureaucracy, not street personnel. They recommended reducing the police executive office 25 percent.
"Simply put, we have no other choice if our city is to be financially solvent," said council President Maryann Mahaffey. "It was a choice between balancing the budget fairly across the board or potentially losing everything we have worked for to a state takeover of our finances, where no one's job and no city services would be guaranteed."
For six weeks the City Council has been making adjustments to the mayor's $2.8 billion budget proposal. In addition to cutting spending further, the council dismantled the mayor's elaborate plan to consolidate numerous city departments and streamline government.
Council President Pro Tem Kenneth Cockrel Jr. said the mayor's budget was as "rooted in fantasy as 'Star Wars: Episode III.'"
Doubtful that many of the mayor's revenue proposals would be achieved in time for the new budget year, the council scrapped the mayor's plan to raise $12.3 million from a prepared food tax and $2.5 million from a property transfer tax.
Council members also were skeptical of the administration's ability to hand Detroit's bus system over to a regional transportation authority and find the political will to form a regionwide supervisory structure for city-owned Cobo Center, which hosts the premier North American International Auto Show.
Kilpatrick admitted there hasn't been regional support for Cobo Center but said progress is being made on the Detroit Area Regional Transit Authority, or DARTA.
The city's legislative body also restored $1.5 million to the Health Department for conducting food inspections after noting that it wasn't clear if Wayne County would be able to pick up thousands of restaurant and food inspections in the city.
Support for the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History was restored. And council members brought up funding for the city's airport to $2.5 million, citing the need for private aircrafts expected to utilize the facility for Super Bowl.
Kilpatrick said leaders of the museum and the airport have been preparing to do without city support, so it was an unnecessary appropriation.
The mayor also blasted the council for proposing to cut adult bus fares by 25 cents and giving the Department of Transportation an additional $20 million without an explanation.
Mostly the debate circled around public safety. Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said because 86 percent of the police budget is dedicated to paying salaries and benefits, she will have no choice but to lay off 612 officers, or any officer with less than six years on the force.
Fire Commissioner Tyrone Scott said five fire companies will have to close on top of five already slated for "deactivation." Kilpatrick said he plans to meet with council members individually, hoping for a compromise.