Saginaw residents will have a chance to vote on a 7.5-mill renewal for public safety in a special election Tuesday, Feb. 27. City Council members Monday approved the ballot language for a levy that costs property owners $7.50 for every $1,000 of taxable value, half the sales value.
For example, the owner of a home with a sales value of $40,000 (taxable value half, or $20,000) would continue paying $150 per year, while the owner of a $100,000 property pays $375.
The levy expires at the close of 2025, and the five-year renewal referendum seeks to carry on from 2026 to 2030. By seeking the earliest possible vote, the council allows future time to consider a repeated request later during 2024 if this first one fails, which would be ultimately as part of the presidential election next November. Saginaw’s 6-mill school building tax passed in the 2020 presidential vote.
Council members did not discuss the late-winter ballot request, which would maintain an annual $3.25 million infusion for police and fire. Instead, they devoted the bulk of their meeting to a $90 million STARS long-term plan to one day move five blocks along North Warren to a rehabbed Potter Street Railroad Station, revitalizing the Longstreet/Civitan neighborhood at the same time.
The public safety millage is viewed as an immediate necessity among city leaders, while the Potter plan is part of a futuristic wish list entering the 2030s decade.
During the peak times of the early 1970s, Saginaw’s general fund budget employed more than 200 police officers. The population since then has fallen by half, but the force has been slashed by more than two-thirds, down to 62, requiring the city to rely on an increasing state police presence.
Similar cutbacks have afflicted firefighter funding, to the point that the southeast quadrant lacks its own station with the closing of the Hess facility.
These scenarios are with the 7.5-mill special assessment, along with support from the general budget. Without the added levy, services would be even more bare bones.
With all of Saginaw’s Rust Belt challenges on local tax base, an equal cause of the fund shortfall is long-time erosion of federal and state aid through general revenue sharing. Grant funds are newly forthcoming via the federal ARPA and through a Lansing legislature that has become more generous with Democrats regaining power. But these monies are for special purposes, not for the regular operating budget.
Voters approved the public safety tax in 2005 and have renewed every five years since then. Each time has been by a wide margin, while earlier rejecting proposals to lift 1979 property tax caps that would add less than 3 mills for the general fund, compared to the 7.5 mills under the special assessment.
The theory among analysts is that numerous voters are more supportive if they see “public safety” guaranteed on the ballot, even when their elected leaders promise that removing the caps would serve a similar purpose while also ensuring that businesses, large and small, pay their fair share. No supporter of the inflation-locked limits on property revenue has been elected since Dr. Walter C. Averill in 1977 and 1981, yet the caps remain in place.
Council members last summer discussed seeking another public request to remove the tax limits, but they decided to take care of the public safety special assessment first, in order not to confuse voters.
Bus plan outlined
Regarding the Potter Depot, STARS Director Glenn Steffens said an inspection shows that the 142-year-old landmark, out of operation for nearly half of those years, is “structurally sound,” and that a $20 million renovation would be “feasible” as part of a “$90 million to $100 million” plan to revive the entire neighborhood between the railroad yard and I-675, which has become almost entirely vacant except for a few small enclaves.
What would be the source of these big bucks, when city leaders see no recourse but to levy added millage for the basis of public safety? Steffens noted that the funding would be dependent on winning federal and state transportation grants, money that Saginaw never pursued in the past and would not see otherwise.
Councilman Bill Ostash volunteers as treasurer for the non-profit Depot Preservation Corp., formed after a 1990 arson nearly destroyed the structure, and he said historic district grant funds also could come into play.
STARS, Saginaw Transit Authority Regional Services, went through some troubles before Steffens arrived to take the director’s reins in 2016.
The first half of Monday’s presentation reviewed Steffens’ seven years, with fixed routes and special services expanded via a modernized fleet, boosting the employee count to 130, up from 60. Another accomplishment was more simple, with two years of free fares to help riders cope with pandemic hardship. A token still costs $1, down from $1.50 a decade ago.
City residents pay 3.2 mills, while suburbanites shell out 0.0 in property taxes. Outreach beyond borders includes rides for workers to Pigeon in the Thumb and at Hemlock Semiconductor, for students to SVSU and Delta, even shoppers to Frankenmuth.
Steffens says a key to fairness is that the outlying entities feel a self-interest to subsidize all costs when STARS buses cross the borders, so that city residents don’t feel they are being taxed for the benefit of the ‘burbs.
One example is that home-service Lift rides cost $2 for city residents who pay taxes to support STARS, compared to $15 for “Rides to Wellness” for non-city dwellers. If suburbanites see potential for lower costs by joining a future countywide transit system, that’s all for the better, Steffens said.
The Potter project would dominate the next seven years, with a target of 2030.
“We see it as our future,” he told the council.
To view the STARS presentation, click here.
Here comes hockey
When The Dow Event Center welcomes the Canadian Hockey League’s Memorial Cup junior championship playoffs next spring, city-based enterprises will reap their share of business benefits. assured Jimmy Greene, representing the host Saginaw Spirit.
Skepticism has resulted from reports that a vast majority of an estimated 10,000 visitors from hockey towns in the various provinces will opt to stay in Frankenmuth. Not that Saginaw city is home to any group lodging, other than the Ramada Inn between State and Davenport, but tourist spending options extend beyond hotel rooms.
Greene pegged the regional economic benefit of the two-week playoffs at between $25 million and $30 million, up from the original billing in the $20 million range. He said he will return to seek “council support” in coming weeks for further site and street preparations. To view his remarks within the three-minute limit, click here.
For his part, Steffens said STARS stands ready to operate a 15-minute route from The Dow to city-based businesses and attractions, funded by the Downtown Development Authority, which also extends its boundaries into Old Town.
City Manager Tim Morales said much of the work in and around The Dow, city-based but county-owned, will endure beyond the hockey tournament for years to come. Some of the grant funds would not be available, he said, if not for the leadership effort to bring the Memorial Cup to town.
