Traverse City commissioners will dig into the city’s proposed 2016-17 budget tonight (Monday) – the first prepared by City Manager Marty Colburn. The $15.37 million budget calls for the creation of four new city positions in the next year – addressing environmental and public safety issues commissioners have identified as priorities – but will also cut sidewalk and street spending in half. Both topics are likely to dominate commission discussion tonight.

New City Positions
After leading commissioners through a strategic planning session this spring, Colburn used city priorities identified by the board – including the environment, health/welfare and public safety – to shape this year’s budget. “We’re trying to target the most immediate needs,” Colburn says. “Environmental issues were number one.”

Colburn is proposing hiring a director of public utilities and a city forester to help address those issues. Both positions have existed in city administration in the past, but have been vacant in recent years. The director of public utilities would oversee the water and wastewater treatment plants, water distribution department, sewer collection system and future stormwater collection system.

“This is an area we need to place an emphasis on now and in the future,” says Colburn. “Making sure we have clean water….is (a process) that’s going on 24/7, 365 days a year. There are ramifications if we don’t keep up with federal regulations in a timely manner. And we’re trying to grow into a new utility overseeing stormwater, so we need someone to address that.”

The city also has responsibility for approximately 18,000 trees in public right-of-ways and city parks and property. “We have to care for these trees, and we don’t have anyone assigned to that responsibility right now,” says Colburn of hiring a forester. “We’re a Tree City USA, and trees are part of the living component of the city. We need an expert to help us.”

On the public safety front, Colburn is proposing to add a traffic officer to the city police department and a firefighter to the fire department. The Grand Traverse Metro Fire Department informed the city it no longer wants to provide fire plan review services, says Colburn, and the city has “the expertise on staff to do it.” Colburn hopes to assign an employee to plan reviews and hire a new firefighter to fill in the gap in firefighting services.

The traffic officer, meanwhile, would “focus on targeting specific projects of traffic management, safety and behavior within the neighborhoods and the city.” Colburn says the TCPD officer would be “working closely with the community police officers and the neighborhoods as they develop a plan to provide safer streets.”

Sidewalks & Streets
The total cost of the four new city positions is roughly $400,000, according to Colburn. That's approximately the same amount the city will draw from general fund reserves to balance the budget. To avoid further taxing reserves, Colburn proposes to cut infrastructure spending – including sidewalks and street investment – by half to $670,000 in the next fiscal year.

Colburn says the cuts aren’t meant to deemphasize infrastructure, but to “slow down the train” of city projects. “There are so many projects the city is working on…that we need to focus on direction and guidance,” Colburn says. “We also need to maintain some reserves. We've been digging into the (fund balance) year after year.” The city manager says that in addition to the proposed 2016-17 budget, he also plans to present commissioners tonight with a “long-term strategy” for prioritizing city spending areas.

Commissioners cite the infrastructure cuts as their primary area of concern heading into tonight’s review.

“I’m concerned about the great drop in money that’s going to be allocated for capital improvement projects,” says Commissioner Ross Richardson. “I don’t know what the impact of that is yet. We’ll have to figure that out.”

Mayor Jim Carruthers agrees. “We’ve spent the last number of years focusing on streets and sidewalks,” says Carruthers. “I’m not happy we’re lessening it all of the sudden. I believe sidewalks and street repairs are important to all of us (on the commission).” Carruthers says he’s supportive of the proposed new city positions, but wants to review if reducing spending in areas like infrastructure is the only solution for funding those jobs.

 “If we don’t have the money or it’s going to hamper us on existing projects…we’ll have to take a look at that,” he says.

City commissioners meet at 7pm tonight at the Governmental Center.