Detroit CFO lays out OCFO priorities and ARPA timeline as council adds motions on participatory budgeting, inspections and enforcement pilot

Tanya Stenomart, Detroit's chief financial officer, opened the Expanded Budget Finance and Audit standing committee hearing on March 25, presenting the Office of the Chief Financial Officer's FY27 priorities and an update on major funding streams.

Stenomart told the committee the OCFO is aligning the budget with Mayor Sheffield's priorities for housing, neighborhoods, public safety, youth and economic mobility, and noted the CFO's statutory duty to certify that the council's adopted budget complies with the Home Rule City Act. She said the office has consolidated financial functions into seven divisions and continues to seek efficiencies while preserving a budget cushion.

"We will continue to create and implement a financial infrastructure that results in a structurally balanced budget for each fiscal year and long term plan," Stenomart said.

Deputy CFO Donnie Johnson gave a general fund overview, saying OCFO's year-over-year budget increase is under $2 million and driven mainly by wage inflation; the office achieved headcount efficiencies to absorb most cost pressures. Johnson said the city ended fiscal year 2025 with a $105,000,000 surplus and that the administration recently recorded a $21,000,000 FEMA COVID reimbursement included in the current budget.

"Our increases are really attributable primarily to typical annual wage inflation," Johnson said.

Chief Deputy CFO Regina Greer and Deputy CFO Terry Daniels summarized Treasury and grants activity. Daniels said the OCFO manages an active grant portfolio of more than $3 billion and that the city was originally allocated $826,000,000 in ARPA funds; OCFO reported about 87% of that ARPA allocation has been spent through March and said roughly $100,000,000 remains to be obligated by December 31, 2026.

"We are confident that we will get the $100,000,000 spent," Daniels said, adding OCFO will return to council with a prioritized list of projects and shortfalls in about four weeks.

Assessor Alvin Horn described a multi-year shift from manual appraisals toward a multiple-regression valuation model designed to better account for neighborhood attributes and to address concerns about over-assessment. Horn said the office is in year two of a three-year proof-of-concept and is using analytics software that includes AI components.

"AI is part of the software that we use. It's an analytical statistical software by IBM," Horn said.

Deputy CFO and Chief Procurement Officer Sandra Stall reviewed procurement changes and vendor outreach. She described a recent launch of a new bid platform (Bonfire) that has attracted about 3,800 vendor registrations and noted OCP streamlined roughly $4,000,000 of awards across 108 small-dollar contracts, with a high share to Detroit-based vendors.

Committee members used the hearing to press for follow-up information and to place several items into the closing resolution or executive session. Motions recorded at the hearing included urging continued work on participatory budgeting; adding a review of presale inspections to the closing resolution; placing discussion of an entertainment/amusement fee (state-enabled) into the closing resolution; putting unresolved opera project dollars into executive session; and asking for a risk-management review related to recurring lawsuits against DPD and DDOT. All motions were adopted by voice vote or unanimous consent where noted.

Gabriela Santiago Romero moved that the council allocate $1,000,000 in vacancies to pilot a truck enforcement unit (the motion sponsor said the pilot might be adjusted later and the amount could be lowered to $750,000 depending on equipment and staffing). OCFO staff said a pilot could be structured using existing vacancies and could include certified scales and enforcement equipment.

"I think something around $750,000 because that's going to include the equipment they need to purchase," OCFO staff said in response to the pilot question.

On other operational topics, council members requested a written breakdown of how a state-enabled local entertainment/amusement fee could translate to mills of property-tax relief (OCFO previously calculated $30,000,000 of unrestricted revenue equates to roughly 4 mills and said a 1-mil reduction equals about $7,000,000 in forgone revenue). Members also pressed for a 45-day memorandum on fleet size, lease expirations and potential savings from selling or not renewing vehicles.

The OCFO closed by reiterating its commitment to a balanced FY27 budget and said it would return with reconciled ARPA project shortfalls and further detail on requested items.

Votes at a glance

- Motion to urge continued planning for participatory budgeting: adopted by unanimous consent (mover: Committee member at SEG 551).

- Motion to add presale-inspection evaluation to the closing resolution: adopted by unanimous consent (mover: Member Johnson at SEG 986).

- Motion to include entertainment/amusement fee discussion in the closing resolution: adopted by unanimous consent (mover: Member Calloway at SEG 1069).

- Motion to add risk-management discussion to closing resolution/executive session: adopted by unanimous consent (mover: Member Calloway at SEG 1161).

- Motion to place remaining opera dollars into executive session: adopted by unanimous consent (mover: Member Waters at SEG 1234).

- Motion to allocate $1,000,000 from vacancies for a truck enforcement pilot (subject to refinement): adopted by unanimous consent (mover: Gabriela Santiago Romero at SEG 1364).

What happens next

OCFO pledged follow-up: a prioritized reconciliation of the ~ $100,000,000 ARPA balance and a written response on HUD compliance staffing, the vehicle fleet inventory and other data requests. Council members indicated several matters will proceed to closing-session deliberations and executive session as appropriate.

(Reporting based solely on the committee transcript.)