Staff outlines centralized fee‑schedule plan and community budget priorities ahead of Detroit budget season

LPD staff briefed the Budget Finance & Audit committee on two administrative reports on March 4: a proposed centralized city fee schedule (item 7.3) and an LPD summary of community budget priorities and outreach (item 7.4).

Amber Levick, LPD staff analyst, presented the centralized fee schedule report and described a proposed technical approach using Smartsheet’s Data Shuttle to aggregate department fees into one public, searchable screen. Levick said the approach would allow each department to maintain its own fees while feeding a central public page; the report recommended an oversight department (to be determined by administration) and prominent placement—one suggestion was the city’s front page, detroitinmind.gov. She told the committee some departments contacted (for example, Building Safety) did not foresee major budget impacts from the consolidation.

Renee Short, also with LPD, summarized recent community budget priority forums (seven district sessions). LPD found housing and home repair ranked among the top priorities in four of seven districts; transportation, public safety, blight elimination and sidewalk repair also ranked highly. Short recommended restoring an in‑depth polling question that was omitted this year to better distinguish whether residents mean targeted affordable housing units or broader housing affordability when they identify "affordable housing" as a priority.

Council members asked how the centralized fee schedule would be communicated to the public; Levick said the report anticipates conspicuous placement on the city website and possible cross‑linking on department pages. Council staff indicated interest in pursuing the centralized schedule after the budget process.

Next steps: LPD will coordinate with the Office of Budget and administration staff about oversight and implementation timing; council agreed to receive and file the reports.