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Detroit budget committee asks administration to post memos publicly, sets return dates for multiple budget items
Summary
The Budget, Finance and Audit Committee directed administration to ensure budget responses are publicly accessible and set timelines to return several budget memos, scheduled a presentation on revenue and pension forecasts, and amended a museum memo for clarification.
The Detroit City Council’s Budget, Finance and Audit Committee on April 15 pressed administration staff to improve public access to budget memos and set timelines to return multiple items for further review.
Chair opened unfinished business by noting several memos had been submitted through a Smartsheet link rather than eScribe and asked staff to make responses available to the public. Miss Sullivan, administrative staff, told the committee that most responses are posted on the city’s budget website via the Smartsheet for the current cycle and that retroactively moving all responses into eScribe this year would be difficult; she said she would follow up with the administrative team about submitting responses via eScribe in future cycles.
Committee members moved and carried a series of procedural actions to bring multiple line items back for additional review. The committee voted without recorded objection to return item 5.1 (memorandum for the ombudsman FY27 budget) in two weeks and to bring item 5.2 (DPD budget memorandum) back in two weeks after staff agreed to follow up on posting. Several other items not yet received or not uploaded were also scheduled to return in two weeks.
The administration asked to present the February 2026 Revenue Estimating Conference report and the FY2026–2035 long-term forecast for legacy pension plans and debt obligations; the committee agreed to schedule that presentation three weeks out to allow time for a longer audit presentation on April 29.
The committee amended the description for item 5.26 to reflect a memorandum concerning the Museum of African American History and moved that item back in two weeks for follow-up. Separately, the chair moved item 5.32 — a request for a resolution on Senate bills 559, 560 and 561 — to return in four weeks. Under new business, a request for a report on principal residence exemptions for LLC entities (6.1) was moved and carried to return in two weeks.
All procedural motions were carried by unanimous consent or “seeing no objections,” and staff committed to follow up on posting memos to eScribe where feasible. The committee scheduled its next meeting for April 29 and said it would continue to press for clearer public access to budget responses ahead of the formal budget season.
