DAH director Julianne Pastoral outlines FY27 budget, blight-court workload and collections strategy

Julianne Pastoral, director of the Department of Appeals and Hearings, presented DAH's proposed fiscal year 2027 budget to the Detroit City Council Committee of the Whole, highlighting workload, collections activity and upcoming technology and contract requests.

"Since opening its doors in 2005, DAH has adjudicated over 873,000 blight tickets," Pastoral said, and described three core bureau functions: blight court, administrative appeals hearings and blight clearance certifications. She reported that in fiscal year 2025 ticket issuance fell by about 44,000 and adjudications declined by roughly 30,000 compared with the prior year.

Pastoral gave the department's FY25 judgment figures as $18,400,000 and said DAH collected $5,600,000, a roughly 30% collection rate. She said the difference between tickets issued and adjudicated largely represents matters resolved before a hearing, either by early payment (which carries a 10% discount) or by dismissal by the ticketing agency. "Those judgments remain valid and enforceable," Pastoral said, and outlined post-judgment remedies such as liens, garnishments and collections vendor activity including letter and phone sweeps and skip traces.

On case management and communications, Pastoral described a new text-message program for unpaid judgments that uses a verified shortcode, displays the recipient and respondent names, includes a vendor phone number and link, and provides disclosure and opt-out options to reduce scam risk. "We will make sure that 'on behalf of' language can be added," she told Councilmember Denzel McCampbell when asked whether messages should say they are from the City of Detroit.

Pastoral said DAH will soon request council approval for two contracts: a new case-management software system and an extension of the collections contract. She explicitly stated the forthcoming case-management contract includes no artificial intelligence: "There is no AI as part of that contract," she said, noting the law department required that exclusion.

On staffing and budget figures, Pastoral said DAH requests 19 full-time equivalents and proposed expenditures of about $2.2 million for FY27, an increase of roughly $504,000 from the prior year that incorporates two positions previously funded through ARPA. She said the department projects roughly $5.9 million in revenue under the FY27 plan but described collection work as an ongoing operational focus.

Councilmembers pressed on operations and access. Pastoral said DAH continues to run hearings remotely via Zoom (100% remote since the COVID pivot) while offering ADA accommodations and in-person services where requested. In response to questions about language access, Pastoral and manager Joy Lynn Hunt described real-time interpretation steps, the ability to reschedule hearings to secure an interpreter and plans to translate outreach materials as part of a website redesign.

Pastoral also said payment plans and settlement authority are available through the collections vendor, and confirmed DAH has discussed (and wishes to pursue) "amnesty day" approaches similar to those used in other local courts, but said implementation timing and parameters require additional coordination with the city's finance office.

The presentation concluded with Pastoral's offer to support community outreach and an invitation for follow-up questions from council offices. Two items flagged for future council action were the case-management software contract and a collections contract extension, both of which Pastoral said DAH will bring forward for committee consideration.