City Budget Receives Passing Grade

Happy New Year, well, kind of.

For some, it may not be the best fiscal new year, but for Trenton, moving forward in the correct financial direction is reason enough to pull out the party poppers.

With 2011 rapidly approaching, Trenton's administration is reflecting on the current budget that is in place, and possibly more importantly, looking forward to what 2011-12 has in store. 

The 2010-11 budget is about $18.3 million, Mayor Gerald Brown said.

"For the past three years, we have suffered the effects of the recession, but we have done so without reducing the services that our residents have come to expect and deserve," he said.

Cuts, though quite common in most municipalities these days, are something Brown is vehemently trying to avoid this year, if possible, he said.

"We expect to see another drop in taxable SEV's (state equalized home values), and it will once again affect our budget process—and maybe this time it will affect the services that we offer," Brown said. "But I truly believe that we will get through it with most of our services intact, if not all."

Other local communities, however, have not been so lucky.

The consolidation of services is on the radar of other local communities as well.

Wyandotte Mayor  Joseph Peterson recently made a State of the City address, in which he discussed the concessions the city was making, which included employee and benefit reductions. And, to avoid layoffs, six Grosse Ile municipal workers took voluntary retirements.

However, Trenton's 2010-11 budget did not hold repercussions quite so harsh.

"In the past nine years, we have only laid off two employees and they were from our engineering department," Brown said.

Trenton has been working to cut down operational costs by implementing energy saving ideas, working on health care savings and constantly reviewing policies, Brown said.

"We are continually looking at areas of the budget to save monies, and we don't wait until the end of the fiscal year to make changes," he said.

However, while Brown is doing what he can to save as much as possible, he can only work with what he has, he said.

"In previous years, we've taken all the fat off the budget, so we're working with very lean means," said City Administrator Robert Cady.

In comparison to other surrounding cities, Trenton may seem to do well in certain areas, but "treading water financially above our chin," as Brown put it, is key to gaining and maintaining a happy new year.

"There is not any room for error," Cady said.

A pdf of the city's 2010-11 budget is available for this story. It can be found below the photo of City Hall.