City budget calls for 7 percent increase in funding

Funding for the installation of video cameras in police cars highlighted City Administrator Neil Berlin's $179 million budget proposal to the Ann Arbor City Council this past spring.

The annual budget is seven percent larger than last year. The 300-page proposal includes figures for how the city should pay for utilities provision, fire protection, policing, zoning regulation, city planning and garbage collection.

Also within the proposal are assessments by city officials of how well the city is providing its services and where improvement - and increased funding - is necessary.

Berlin said that, overall, Ann Arbor is very well run compared to similar communities. Particularly, the city is providing a high level of service to its customers with very few employees and has been excelling in its level of customer service.

"In many ways, we really do deserve an 'A' for what we're doing," Berlin said.

But the city could be improved, Berlin said, pointing mainly to the city's public transit, he said.

"We might more efficiently use our public resources to use transit in the community," Berlin said. Specifically, he said the city should look into bus pass programs like the one used in Boulder, Colo. where downtown employees are given free bus passes.

This type of program has been previously suggested by School of Public Policy students who presented a study of downtown parking to the council earlier this year.

It has since been advocated by many downtown merchants, who see it as a partial solution to the parking shortage.

"The issue of costs, city costs of increasing downtown parking, has been an issue," Berlin said.

The budget calls for a repeat of this past year's citywide survey that asked citizens how city funds should be spent and where improvements can be made.

It also calls for the city to spend $5,000 to be evaluated by the International City-County Management Association, in which Ann Arbor will be compared to cities of similar size across the nation for the efficiency and effectiveness of its governance.

The proposed budget also makes preparations for the distant future by enlarging the city's pension fund in anticipation of mass retirements as the city's baby boom employees begin to retire.

If council follows the program, the balance of the city's pension fund should be $9.8 million by June 1999, Berlin said.

The budget plan also calls for the city to develop a sustainability plan. Sustainability refers to the city's ability to make and follow long-term plans that address issues of maintaining neighborhoods, local economies and local environmental balance.

"The hope is that the city could maintain a plan in this area that could be linked with the plan of the University and the development plan of Washtenaw County," Berlin said, referring to the University's Master Plan, which outlines future growth of the University in regards to the physical cohesion of the campus.

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