We’ll say this upfront.
If it were up to us, our police officers and firefighters would all be paid more.
And now they are. Both departments recently received salary boosts from the city that will cost the city an additional $500,000 more a year. They deserve the raises, and the salary adjustments should help make Hamtramck more attractive to would-be recruits.
But, fiscally, it does make us pause. Even Councilmember Mahmood Muhith conceded the raises are “aggressive.”
Certainly, it is a hefty sum of money for any small city to finance. What troubles us is that it is now imminent that Wayne Count will close down its jail here in Hamtramck, now that its new one has opened.
The county pays the city about $1 million a year to operate the old jail. City officials have known about this possibility for several years. That loss of revenue will now force the city into dipping into its budget surplus.
In other words, the city will be in deficit spending.
On top of that, it’s likely that city officials will not renew their contract with the current parking meter company when it expires in a year. That could mean a loss of $200,000 to $300,000 in revenue per year, if a similar deal isn’t struck with another company.
City officials have been spending a lot of money in recent years, and we are told that much of it is coming from various grants.
Hamtramck has always gone through cycles of financial security to insolvency. When finances go bad, the answer, in recent years, was for the state to step in and appoint an emergency manager – and that’s not something that has proven successful, at least not in the long term.
Our pertinent question is whether the city is doing any long-range financial planning, or preparing for the worst case scenario.
We bring this up only as a matter of caution – and from remembering past issues.
Posted Oct. 11, 2024
Confused
October 11, 2024 at 10:41 pm
I wonder why Plante & Moran wanted us to disband the fire department, abolish the court under the former mayor’s tenure. They were scaring us to approve tax increases or the city would be finally absorbed into Detroit.
We even wanted to file bankruptcy, but Granholm didn’t let us.
Now things are peachy keen something doesn’t add up. What changed so radically? There were many fishy things going on under the former mayor and I think more will be coming to light.