Detroit mayor’s office outlines budget priorities; council directs executive sessions on staffing, solar expansion and service programs

The Detroit mayor’s office presented its proposed priorities and program updates during a Committee of the Whole budget hearing, highlighting sustainability, community violence intervention, mental‑health co‑response and neighborhood services. Council members later moved — without objection — to place several items into executive session including Serve Detroit expansion, a possible phase 3 of the solar neighborhoods initiative, and $1.1 million for additional Department of Neighborhoods staff.

The presentation opened with Ray Salton II, chief of staff in the mayor’s office, listing the mayor’s priorities. “The Mayor's Office priorities have been, sustainability, mental health co response, community violence interventions, customer service, and also community outreach,” Salton said, summarizing the administration’s aims going into the budget process.

Why it matters: The hearing combined program updates with specific budget and policy questions that affect neighborhood services, public safety funding and planned sustainability projects. Council directives to discuss staffing and program expansions in executive session indicate follow‑up negotiations that could shape final budget allocations before adoption.

City program updates presented • Department of Neighborhoods: Director Aaron Harris reviewed recurring community programs including Motor City Makeover (annual cleanups), Halloween in The D events, volunteer engagements, a senior snow‑assistance program and youth shadowing cohorts. He said the department has registered roughly 675 block clubs and neighborhood associations to date and described ongoing volunteer and home‑repair activities funded or organized by the department.

• Community Violence Intervention (CVI): Deputy Mayor Malia Howard reported that the city has used $11,000,000 in ARPA funds to support five community groups operating in designated CVI zones. “Performance is measured quarterly based on the numbers of reduced homicides and shootings,” Howard said, and she identified the five groups serving CVI zones as Detroit People's Community (led by Negus Vu), New Era Community Connection (Zeke), Force Detroit (Zoe Kennedy), Detroit 300 (Eric Ford) and Detroit Friends and Family (Ray Winans). Howard said zones are seeing violence decreases ranging from about 24% to 61% and that the highest performing groups received full second‑year funding.

Council members raised concern about an area that lost funding for a sixth CVI group and asked whether the city could fill that gap. Howard and staff said the administration had issued a notice of funding availability and identified a replacement applicant; they also pointed to pending state legislation (House Bills 4601 and 4602) that, if enacted, would create a Public Safety Trust Fund to provide more sustainable state funding for community violence prevention.

• Sustainability and solar neighborhoods: Tricia Stein, the mayor’s chief strategy officer, outlined the Detroit Climate Strategy work and the city’s “solar neighborhoods” project. “Thanks to City Council's support of the solar neighbourhoods with phase 1 and phase 2...this is mostly vacant and blighted land that we are now transitioning into productive use and it will be 31 megawatts of clean energy,” Stein said. She described 165 acres targeted for arrays, neighborhood design meetings (including interest in agrivoltaics in some neighborhoods), and linked energy‑efficiency home upgrades tied to the solar sites. Stein said the city vehicle fleet is also shifting toward low‑ or no‑emission vehicles and that 112 such vehicles are being deployed across departments.

Stein told council that council previously approved $1,200,000 for EV charging infrastructure; those local funds will be leveraged with federal grants and ARPA where applicable, she said. She noted the administration has a signed grant agreement with a federal charging program referred to in the presentation as “CFI.”

• Mental health co‑response and DPD supports: Stein and other presenters summarized efforts to expand behavioral health specialists embedded with Detroit Police Department and 9‑1‑1 operations. The presentation said the city funds 22 non‑sworn personnel in co‑response teams through the end of fiscal 2026 with ARPA and described embedded behavioral health specialists to help deescalate calls and refer residents to services.

• Homeland Security and emergency management: Hilton Kinkade, director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, described the city’s emergency communications and mutual aid agreements, including weekly siren tests, wireless emergency alerts, incident command training and the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Kinkade said his office receives daily vetting of events through several intelligence sources including a local counterterrorism team, a regional information center and federal partners.

Council follow‑up and motions The committee recorded four council motions related to follow‑up and staffing; each motion was made on the floor and carried with no recorded objections: 1) move the Serve Detroit program expansion to executive session for discussion; 2) move the possible expansion to a phase 3 of the solar neighborhoods initiative to executive session; 3) add a request to include a phase 3 solar expansion in the closing resolution; and 4) place a proposal to allocate about $1.1 million for additional Department of Neighborhoods full‑time equivalents into executive session. Council members said those items require more detailed discussion with budget staff and will return as part of the budget negotiation process.

Public comment and next steps The hearing closed with a brief public‑comment segment in which five callers spoke on topics that included senior accessibility services, neighborhood concerns and general budget input. Council staff and administration members said they will return with implementation plans, additional budget details and timelines in subsequent budget meetings; staff specifically offered to provide a detailed implementation timeline for nurse‑navigation, compost pilot and agrivoltaics partnerships on request.

Ending note: Several council members and staff emphasized the hearing as part of the current council’s final budget cycle together and said they intend to complete the process before the end of the fiscal year.