Written by Tanya Terry
At the Special City Council meeting on Wednesday, June 5, many Flint area residents expressed frustration over a balanced budget not being passed by the June 2 deadline. Some also expressed resentment over how citizens have been being treated at council meetings, as well as at a June 1 march in which residents said they were fed up with the city’s government and the fact they are still waiting for compensation from the Flint Water Crisis settlement.
Councilman Jonathan Jarrett noticed that in the agenda packets that council members were given there were two different budgets with two different “deficits.”
“The budget that the mayor presented to City Council had a slightly over $4 million deficit,” stated Councilwoman Tonya Burns.” “The budget presented this evening had a $13 million plus deficit. Flint has had four emergency managers beginning in 2002. It is required by the Flint City Charter and mandated that a balance budget is passed. Both of the budgets that were presented are both deficit budgets.”
“The one (budget) that we were presented by yourself and the mayor show a $4 million deficit,” Councilman Dennis Pfeiffer said to the city’s chief financial officer, Phillip Moore.
Pfeiffer added: “The one that you’re trying to sneak through shows a $13.4 million deficit.”
Councilmember Jerri Winfrey-Carter stated: “In my research in going over the budget and everything that I have, the mayor’s office has roughly $1.3 to $1.5 million increase.”
Winfrey-Carter suggested budget cuts to the mayor’s office to help make up the deficit.
One speaker during public comment offered a unique perspective.
Wantwaz Davis spoke as a former Flint City Councilmember, saying:
“City council’s number one job is budgetary process. That’s their number one ultimate job: to pass the budget and do numbers, the checks and the balances. They have a whole year to put this together. Unfortunately, we’re at this point where we are now. And this is embarrassing.
“And my thing is, I don’t think that a lot of city council members know how to put a budget together…You guys have never come up with a plan to counteract the budget that the mayor put together.”
Davis said if the budget was $4 million in deficit it should not be passed.
“The budget is balanced,” added Davis. “It’s a balanced budget because they’re using the fund balance, which is a reserve. Every municipality does that. But, the difference is, with this budget, it utilizes money that shouldn’t be utilized because a lot of the services that they’re trying to pay for don’t need to be paid.”
The council ultimately voted to extend the 2025 fiscal year budget until June 30, 2025.
At a June 3 press conference, Mayor Sheldon Neeley said “residents stand to use support from public safety, infrastructure, neighborhood revitalization dollars, blight services, senior services (and) economic development opportunities” if a budget is not passed soon enough.
