Detroit ethics board admonishes Deputy CFO/Assessor Alvin Horn; council receives report as Horn defends action

The Internal Operations committee on Wednesday received and filed a public admonishment from the Detroit Board of Ethics concerning Alvin Horn, the city’s deputy CFO and a deputy assessor, after an investigation into how thousands of Detroit Land Bank Authority property transfers were handled.

Crystal Phillips, director of the Board of Ethics, told the committee the board had already completed its review and published a public admonishment to its website; the council voted, by unanimous consent, to receive and file the document.

The admonishment centers on Horn’s decision to approve what the board described as waivers related to late filings of property transfer affidavits for thousands of former Land Bank sales. "The board has already made its decision," Phillips said, noting the matter was closed and the report publicly available.

Horn spoke to the committee and disputed the implication that he or his office added late‑filing penalties. "We did not add a single late filing fee to the 14,499 parcels involved," Horn said. He said the Land Bank’s internal audits showed the Land Bank failed to file the required property transfer affidavits for those sales and that Michigan law places the filing responsibility on buyers. To avoid saddling new owners with past penalties and interest, Horn said he put the properties on the assessor’s sales roll when the assessor’s office was notified so taxpayers would be "held harmless."

Horn offered numerical context for the committee: he said a $500 vacant lot generates roughly $24 in tax, and multiplying that by the 14,499 parcels gives an estimated $347,000; extrapolated across multiple years he said that could total about $1.3 million before interest and penalties. "The simplest way to resolve this is what I did," he said, arguing the action protected residents from unexpected tax bills.

Member Scott Benson said the ethics office "did its job" on the letter of the law but praised Horn’s intent to help residents, adding that the situation also revealed a breakdown at the Land Bank that the council should correct. Benson and other members asked Horn whether the assessor’s office had since coordinated with the Land Bank to prevent recurrence. Horn said the offices now meet monthly, have reconciled inventories to within roughly 200 parcels and aim to capture sales within six‑to‑10 weeks going forward.

After discussion the committee accepted the Board of Ethics report into the record by unanimous consent. The admonishment was received and filed; the committee did not take further disciplinary action in the meeting.

What’s next: The committee recorded Horn’s explanation and the Board of Ethics’ published admonishment in the meeting record. Members urged improved operational processes between the assessor’s office and the Land Bank to prevent similar future issues.