2 weeks Ago By Jameson Cook
A new Macomb County Sheriff’s Office team to track down over 11,000 outstanding warrants and more funding for flood prevention, Animal Control, trail maintenance and technology are emphasized in the proposed 2025 county budget presented Wednesday by County Executive Mark Hackel. Hackel for the second year in a row appeared in front of the board in the county Administration Building in Mount Clemens to formally deliver the 218-page document and accompanying 18-page graphic-accompanied spending guide for next year. The board voted to receive and file the draft, and commissioners asked a few questions.
In prior years, Hackel sent financial officials to present the spending guide. The proposed $347-million general fund, which is financed by local tax dollars, is a 7.8% increase from $321 million this year.
The total budget of $1.15 billion, a slight increase from this year’s budget of $1.1 billion, includes the general fund and state and federal dollars allocated to the county, such as for roads, Community Mental Health and Macomb Community Action.
Hackel told the board he and finance officials worked with department heads in developing the budget for various services provided by the county as needs increase. “There is a lot of need out there for services that are provided by every department,” he said. “When you look at a budget, you have to take in the totality.
We understand there’s only a certain amount of money we have available to provide those services. It just can’t go to one. We have to figure out how to spread the wealth, and this year I think we’ve been able to do that.
“We’ve done our due diligence and it’s going to be handed off to the board to talk to each one of these department heads and countywides (elected officials who head departments).” Individual department hearings will be held over the next several weeks to approve the budget around Dec. 1.
Hackel will then be able to issue any vetos that then could be overridden by the commissioners. Hackel noted it’s the 14th straight year – every year he’s been in office since the executive post was created in a new charter – of a balanced budget. The general fund balance, which currently sits at about $117 million, would only increase by $400,000 next year after a $9.
9 million surplus last year. But Finance Director Stephen Smigiel said next year’s estimated surplus was figured very conservatively, and he expects it will be several million dollars. A large part of that will be an estimated interest income of about $12 million in 2025 due in large part to the county’s receipt of $170 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds in 2021 and 2022.
Much of those have not yet been spent so the county has been able to earn extra dollars than in prior years. The interest income in 2022 was $5.5 million and was less than that in prior years but jumped to nearly $15 million in 2023, also due to rising interest rates in general, and is expected to be $10 to $13 million this year.
The ARP money will be spent in 2025 and 2026, and the county’s interest income will drop to $8 million in 2026 and $5 million in 2027, Smigiel said. The proposed spending guide is based on a 5.5% increase in property tax revenue, about half of that due to new construction.
It assumes a 3% inflation rate, which also is the built-in increase for salaries, Smigiel said. The Sheriff’s Office labor contracts expire at the end of this year. Its budget is slated to increase 9%, from $100 million this year to $109 million next year in part to pay for four officers of a new crime suppression unit to track down 11,279 warrants that have been approved for suspects.
The warrants are for felonies and misdemeanors. “This is a danger to law enforcement. It’s a danger to the public,” Hackel said.
“This is something that needs to be dealt with. “It’s going to be a four-person unit that goes after these folks on a regular basis. If there’s information that comes their way, if there’s a high-profile individual, these are the folks that will go out there and try to get them off our streets.
Let’s face it, the people who are out there that have victimized (people), the chances and likelihood of them revictimizing is very high.” Hackel also mentioned increased funding to help Animal Control, a “ditching” program by the Roads and Public Works departments to handle increasing flood, and information technology, which will receive a $9 million “network refresh” over the next two years. Hackel pointed to the importance of maintaining high-quality technology, citing the recent cyberattack on the Wayne County computer system.
Smigiel and other officials noted the health of the county’s retiree health fund, which is 91% funded, and other pension funds in the county, all of which are funded at high rates. The county Prosecutor’s Office’s budget, which has been the source of legal disputes between Republican Prosecutor Peter Lucido and Democrat Hackel since Lucido took office in 2021, would increase slightly from $17 million to $17.5 million.
The board, with a GOP majority, has mostly sided with Lucido in the disputes. Hackel said he attended in person due to he and the board getting along well despite some court battles over charter matters. Some of those could be revised in the coming year if establishment of a revision committee is approved by voters in November.
Board Chair Don Brown said communication has improved between the board and the executive, and he appreciates Hackel attending, saying such actions further improve dialogue..
