Tagged: fiscal stabilization bonds

Next year, the city of Flint will charge residents higher fees in exchange for less service.

The budget plan unveiled last night was greeted with anger from city residents and city council members.

The budget plan calls for trimming 20 percent of city government workers from the payroll.   Flint police officers and firefighters are not being spared.   The emergency manager didn't include public safety officers in the budget whose positions are funded with grant money that hasn't been secured yet.

The Flint City Council will hear this afternoon how the city’s emergency manager plans to spend the city’s money next year.

Emergency Manager Michael Brown has been poring over Flint’s finances since he was appointed by Governor Snyder in December to deal with the city’s “financial crisis.”

Brown’s budget plan for next year is expected to reflect the need for further financial belt tightening for a city that has already felt the pinch of past cuts.

Flint’s finance director has said the budget will probably show the city will have to do “less with less.”      That may include layoffs and furlough days for city employees.

Several city unions agreed to contract concessions this month.

The emergency manager’s budget plan may also include selling bonds to address Flint’s long-term debt problem.

Flint’s emergency manager and his staff are working this week to wrap up a budget plan for the city.    The plan will include a request for up to $20 million in bonds to help close the city’s massive budget deficit.

Flint Finance Director Jerry Ambrose hopes the plan will be ready to submit to the state by early next week.   He says the budget plan will address the need to do “less with less”.   Ambrose says layoffs and furlough days are likely.

 A new audit finds the city of Flint is still struggling with millions of dollars of debt.    But the report shows one bright spot for the troubled city.  

It´s hardly a surprise, but a new audit of Flint´s finances confirms the city ended its last fiscal year about 7 million dollars in debt.  The city´s crushing debt was one of the reasons Governor Snyder appointed an emergency manager to fix Flint´s `financial emergency´.