PAC Member Complains That Parks Millage Money Is Being Diverted Through Accounting Trickery

The cash cows who live in Ann Arbor have a record of voting to nickel and dime themselves to death, literally. The city’s property tax bill, thanks to “supplemental” millages, has come to resemble a check in a French restaurant where everything is ala carte. The nickels and dimes have, over the past decade, added up to one of the highest property tax assessments in Michigan for some of the most paltry police and fire coverage, and the third worst roads in the state.

So, first you have to know how to figure out your property taxes. Homeowners multiply assessed value by the number of mills. So, if your assessed value is, say, $200,000, you multiply 200 by the total mills levied. If your assessed value is $125,000, you multiply 125 by the total mills levied. In 2009, Ann Arbor citizens who owned homes that were principal residences paid 45.1876 mills in taxes. Thus, the home with the $200,000 assessed value paid 200 x 45.1876=$9,000 in property taxes.

The voter approved millages for the Ann Arbor Public Library, AATA, Parks Maintenance & Repairs, Greenbelt, and (don’t laugh) Street Repairs add up to an additional $1,435 per year in property taxes for a homeowner with an assessed value of $200,000. In other words, out of that hypothetical $9,000 in property taxes above, $1,435 is for voter approved millages, two of which are up for renewal soon—the Parks and Road Repair.

The Ann Arbor budget book is a deliberately obtuse document. While Council is told it must close yet another “budget gap” by cutting citizen services, in interim City Administrator Tom Crawford and former City Administrator Roger Fraser’s proposed 2012 budget, city manager Sue McCormick is allowed yet another spending spree on behalf of her fiefdom:

The proposed budget includes over $2.2 million for new garbage trucks and over $1 million for new parks vehicles. Why we need to spend $2.2 million on new garbage trucks when we have already spent $4.5 million to purchase 19 new trucks since Jan 2004 is a puzzle. Most of the new trucks are for residential collection. Yet, Ms. McCormick has told Council she wants to privatize residential collection. Perhaps, like at the compost program, where new equipment purchased by taxpayers was off-loaded to WeCare Organics for a song, Ms. McCormick needs Ann Arbor taxpayers to pony up millions for new vehicles to sweeten the pot for the lucky garbage company who will get that sweetheart contract. That spending is in addition to the $3.2 million McCormick spent for new compost and garbage carts. McCormick and Fraser told Council and the public all of this spending would make waste collection more efficient.

The truth? Spending on garbage has doubled since 2004.

Ann Arbor is set to spend more than $69,000 per city employee on fleet charges. In the wacky world that is Ann Arbor city government, vehicle purchase and maintenance are funded while spending on citizen services, such as police and fire, curbside recycling collections, and park upkeep are cut.

So how have Tom Crawford and Roger Fraser come up with the money to give to Sue McCormick for her shopping sprees? In part from the parks millage that is supposed to pay to maintain and repair Ann Arbor’s parks.

Ann Arbor residents own 157 parks with over 2,000 acres of parkland and natural areas. In November of 2006, residents approved a 1.0969 mill parks millage for six years. Each year, that assessment raises about $5 million dollars which should, in theory, be spent on maintaining and repairing the city’s parks. However, a large percentage of the millage money is being diverted.

A Certified Public Accountant prepared a spreadsheet for A2Politico to analyze how park maintenance and repair millage money is being using to pay for everything except park repair and upkeep.

The collected data from the city’s audited financial statements above shows that between 2008 and 2012, internal service charges levied against the park millage increased more than 400 percent, while in the General Fund (where property tax revenues are allocated) the increase for the same line item was less than 10 percent. While charges for fleet costs (one of Sue McCormick’s departments) decreased in the General Fund, fleet costs charged to our parks fund went up 400 percent. Charges for IT services charged to the parks millage almost doubled between 2008 and 2012, and the total amount for internal charges levied against the park millage between 2008 and 2012 (proposed) has gone up almost 500 percent. Meanwhile, in the General Fund, internal charges as a percent of total revenue have decreased.

What becomes clear when looking at this data is that Ann Arbor’s City Council, Mayor and City Administrator have quietly bled money from the parks millage in the form of jacked up internal charges while at the same time reducing the total amount spent on parks to force citizens into the position of paying an additional tax for park repair and upkeep, as opposed to paying for maintenance and upkeep out of the General Fund, from property taxes collected. A2Politico asked a CPA to prepare three graphs. The first is a look at overall parks spending from data taken from the city’s audited financial statements:

The second graph is overall spending on police and fire. Note that spending has remained relatively constant:

In 2006, John Hieftje said during a mayoral debate that he supported the parks millage, and that it was needed in light of the Headlee rollback and the fact that the City has added more park land. What follows is a look at the property tax revenue paid by homeowners to the city between 2001 and 2010. Note that the steady increase in revenues contradicts Hieftje’s claims that there would be less overall tax money available:

Since 2006, Mayor and Council have skimmed $3.592 million dollars from the park millage fund, or about the equivalent of 9 months worth of millage money, for internal charges. The skimming from this fund should, obviously, be stopped and other funds examined for similar skimming via this internal charge extortion racket.

A member of the Park Advisory Commission expressed fear and frustration. The individual asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation on the part of Hieftje.

The PAC member said via email: “When people are lied to, it makes them less likely to trust government. These people who run for local office and say they are ‘green’ and ‘pro park,’ are attacking the very open space I believe voters want protected and were told their millage money was going to pay for. Who would vote for a millage that uses almost one-third of the money to fund ‘internal charges?’ No one! No one should. This is an under-handed attack on our parks that began as soon as the millage was passed and hasn’t stopped.”