CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS are preparing themselves for the Battle of the Budget. There is a $450,000 “surplus,” over which Council members are expected to compete. This petty cash, as it were, distracts from the reality that Council members must be much more directed, pragmatic and assertive in not only allocating the $450,000, but also in overseeing the City Administrator’s proposed allocation of the $79+ million of the General Fund.

While local elected officials claim that city services are delivered just as well with the current 688 FTEs as with the 1,005 FTEs which were in place in 2001, the city’s 2013 National Citizen Survey results debunk such politically-motivated assertions. Fewer than 15 percent of residents rated as “excellent” services provided by the city including crime prevention, fire prevention, street repair, snow removal, garbage collection, storm drainage, street cleaning, street lighting,  traffic enforcement, land use/planning, code enforcement, economic development, animal control, public information services and emergency preparedness.

Providing consistently excellent services should guide Council members in their efforts to shape the 2013 budget delivered to them by the City Administrator. The time has come to sacrifice some of the sacred cows, as it were.

While the city’s IT Department was allocated $6.184 million in 2012, the most recent audit singled out IT for a variety of sloppy practices, including having no policy concerning data retention, and digital backups that were not tested. In 2012, the AAFD was assessed more by the IT Fund than was budgeted to maintain the city’s fire trucks. At the same time, part-time City Council members cobble together digital communications strategies and outreach to constituents which are ineffective, and respond to Freedom of Information Act requests without IT involvement.

At $9.8 million, the Fleet Services Fund is full of pork spending. A complete list of city-owned vehicles reveals that between 2010 and 2013 city officials purchased more than 140 new vehicles, including 9 new snow plow trucks each costing $137,088. The City of Ann Arbor has 688 full-time employees and owns 315 vehicles. The AAPD and the AAFD need their equipment (the AAFD makes do with an aging fleet). However, do Ann Arbor taxpayers need to spend $200,000 each for half a dozen recycling trucks for Recycle Ann Arbor to use, pay to maintain and gas up the trucks for RAA, as well?

Christmas tree pick-up was cut in 2009 to save $34,000. It was revealed in last week’s issue of this newspaper that staff spending on four-star lodging, resorts, travel and meals out has risen 30 percent in a single year, or $34,000. Scale back take-out pizza, stays at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas and $500 meals at local restaurants for city employees, and the money to restore Christmas tree collection is there.

Our point is this: for several years, Ann Arbor’s former City Administrator misled the public by telling them that property tax revenues were down when they were not. This non-existent decrease in overall revenue was used as a pretext by Roger Fraser to push Council to pass budgets that included service cuts (police, fire fighters, leaf collection, park maintenance), as well as large increases in fees (facility use fees, water, sewer, and solid waste fees). This has taken a heavy toll on the quality of services.

The 2013 National Citizen Survey results should guide Council members in their efforts to shape a 2014 budget that allocates more resources toward providing excellent citizen services.