With fingers crossed, city’s financial future is looking up

The next five years will be revealing regarding the financial health of Hamtramck.
Recently, City Manager Katrina Powell submitted a projected five-year budget to the state’s Transition Advisory Board, which is charged with overlooking the city’s finances for at least the next few years.
The Board was created after the emergency manager left her position here over three months ago.
One thing that immediately jumps out in the budget is that there will be deficit spending. By the end of five years, the city will have eaten into a $2 million surplus to the tune of $700,000.
But that’s only if some other revenue streams don’t fall into place.
One area that Powell and her administration have high hopes for is an upcoming citywide re-assessment of all properties. The city won a grant to fund this massive project.
City Treasurer John Gabor recently told the TAB it’s expected the new assessments will raise the tax value of the community by $1 million. It’s likely that will translate into a few hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra property taxes.
That’s a pretty impressive number.
It will also mean that property owners can expect to see their taxes increase as well. It might come as a shock but it’s a long time coming. According to former Emergency Manager Cathy Square the city has not re-assessed properties since 1961.
By state law the city has to re-assess property values every five years. It’s not clear why Hamtramck officials shirked this obligation, but a few years ago the city council balked at the idea for fear that property values would go down, and subsequently property tax collection would decrease.
Powell says she is optimistic about other areas of growth in the budget. We are, of course, crossing our fingers that Hamtramck is on the rebound for good.