City begins search for new Ypsi police chief

By Christine Laughren
Jul. 10, 2009    ·    2:43 a.m.

The City of Ypsilanti will begin its search for a new chief of police after members of city council raised issue with outsourcing police services at Thursday’s special meeting.

The special strategic budget session surrounded discussion of the Ypsilanti Police Department, which has the largest budget allotment in the City’s general fund. Many on council agreed outsourcing police services would not be in the best interest of the city.

“Bringing in a whole new crew of people to this city would be traumatic and a problem for years to come,” said Councilmember Michael Bodary, D-Ward 2.

Council briefly considered outsourcing services as it looks to reduce the city’s general fund budget. However, the idea of dissolving YPD never caught on at Thursday’s meeting.

The city will also be looking to reduce budgets to fire and administrative services as well as the Department of Public Works. Special meetings are scheduled to be held through the end of October to discuss budget shortfalls.

The police services discussion came after council was presented with budget deficits faced by the city in the coming years due to declining taxable value and state shared revenue.

City Manager Ed Koryzno presented council with a best-case, middle and worst-case scenario for decline in taxable value, property tax revenue and state share revenue over the next five years.

The best-case scenario, according to Koryzno, is taxable value on city property would decline at a slower rate than projected, with a 4 percent decline in 2011, a 2 percent decline in 2012 and 2013, no decline in 2014 and a 1 percent decline in 2015.

By comparison, the middle of the road scenario projects a 4.5 percent decline in 2011, a 3.6 percent decline in 2012, a 2.5 percent decline in 2013 and a little more than half a percent in 2014 and 2015.

The city’s worst-case scenario predicts an 8 percent in 2011, 10 percent in 2012, 7 percent in 2013, 3 percent in 2014 and 3 percent in 2015.

Koryzno said the city assessor contacted the City of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County to make the estimates. However, he said “it’s anybody’s guess” as to what the numbers would actually be.

“On the property value situation my gut feeling is leaning toward the worst-case (scenario) or something more toward the middle because I haven’t seen anything indicating we are getting turnaround on property sales or values,” Councilmember Pete Murdock, Ward 3, said.

Murdock went on to say he would estimate decline in state shared revenue should be gauged at more of a best-case or mid-range level. Many on council agreed with Murdock and gave directive to Koryzno to go with the worst-case prediction in taxable value and the middle-range prediction, with a state shared revenue decrease of about 12 percent.

“Worst-case scenario predictions have gotten us where we are which is, I think, as good of a condition we could possibly be in given the conditions that we’re in,” Councilmember William Nickles, Ward 2, said.

Nickels said the numbers are adjustable and the city would be able to gauge the changes in revenue as the fiscal year progressed.

Council gave directive to city staff to pursue a “shopping list” of items or services that could potentially be trimmed from the budget along with line-item costs of services YPD provides.

Giving an estimate after Thursday’s meeting Koryzno said, depending on how the numbers crunch, budget shortfalls could range from half a million to $1.1 million.

Koryzno also said Thursday’s meeting was just the beginning of many conversations the city will have as it looks to reduce its general fund budget.

The next special strategic budget session is scheduled for Aug. 11, in which the city will be discussing fire services.