Happy budget hearing day.

One of my favorite days of the year.

Always great to see you.

The floor is yours.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Council President.

And I'll actually start talking respecting everyone's time.

So good morning.

Thank you to this honorable body for the opportunity to present to you today.

My name is Julianne Pastoral.

I'm the director of the Department of Appeals and Hearings.

I'm honored to be here with my colleague Letitia Perry.

I'm also joined by attorney Joylin Hunt and Mika Smith behind me.

They're my managers at DAH who make up my executive management team.

Before diving into my presentation, I'd like to thank the OCFO, in particular Malcolm Walker, Rachel Wood, Matthew Spaith, and Interim Budget Director Donnie Johnson for their invaluable support and assistance during this budget process.

I also want to recognize all of my colleagues at DAH.

This presentation reflects their hard work and dedication to the city.

Lastly, I acknowledge receipt of the budget questions from LPD earlier this week.

I will be providing written answers to those to this honorable body as soon as possible.

DAH's strategic priorities include further expanding equitable access to justice and continuing to modernize our operations through process improvements.

This will be accompanied by a forthcoming request to this honorable body for a new case management system software.

And let's start with who we are.

For those of you not familiar with DAH that can hear my voice, we are the city's independent administrative hearings bureau established under state law and the Detroit City Code.

Our goal and mission is to provide fair, timely, and impartial hearings while assuring that city ordinances are enforced through an accessible and transparent process.

DAH performs three core functions.

First, blight court, second, administrative appeals hearings, and third, blight clearance certifications.

DAH provides an opportunity to challenge blight tickets.

We also have the authority to determine compliance and uphold fines and fees.

The five-step process through our blight court is first, a ticket is issued by B seed or DPD, which includes a hearing date.

Second, at the hearing, both the city and the respondent have an opportunity to pre opportunity to present evidence and testimony regarding their position.

Third, the hearing officer will make a determination based on the evidence presented and issue a judgment such as not responsible or responsible.

Individuals can appeal responsible judgments to the Third Circuit Court.

And lastly, DH takes affirmative steps to collect unpaid judgment.

Post and judge post-judgment enforcement activities include collections activity and the filing of liens or garnishments.

Moving on to numbers.

Tickets in fiscal year 25 decreased by 44,000 compared to the previous fiscal year.

Either through an admission of responsibility on the part of the property owner or through dismissal through by the ticket issuing agency, such as when compliance is achieved prior to the hearing.

As to fiscal year 25 revenue, the total amount of judgments issued was 18.4 million dollars.

DAH collected 5.6 million, which was 5% over the adopted budget, resulting in an overall collection rate of 30%.

And before we leave this slide, I did want to highlight that this uh artwork is one of our murals completed by local artist Kayleen Abernathy or Free Love K as part of the Detroit Artist Apprenticeship Program City Walls Initiative.

I got that correct.

Next is our administrative appeals bureau.

This bureau reviews certain decisions made by city departments and agencies.

If a decision is eligible to appeal to DAH, the decision will include how to request a hearing and the deadline for filing that appeal.

Through this process, DAH provides an independent forum where individuals and businesses can present evidence and have those decisions reviewed by an independent administrative hearings officer.

Examples of decisions that come before the administrative appeals bureau are business license determinations, emergency demolition designations, and business and building closures.

This photo, the photo on this slide, I just want to briefly highlight is local artist Armadeash Roy and his mentor Grabster working on another DAH mural.

We're very proud to have in our public space.

Now we'll move on to administrative appeal statistics.

The total number of matters doubled over the prior fiscal year.

While we saw reductions in recreational marijuana license, sign variants and pre-compliance review appeals, business license matters increased sevenfold, emergency demolition hearings more than tripled.

And we also started tracking business closure hearings.

DH is also responsible for issuing blight clearance certifications.

This is the first year we are including this core function in our budget budget presentation to City Council, and we're very excited to present this information.

These certifications confirm that no outstanding blight fines or fees exist for any property currently or previously owned within the city of Detroit.

There is no fee for filing a blight clearance application.

In fiscal year 25, as part of a process improvement initiative, we moved the blight clearance application process online to make it easier and more accessible.

We also transitioned the Wayne County Treasurer tax foreclosure auction blight clearance process to a dedicated online application as well.

Blight clearances are required in several key circumstances.

For example, to obtain business licenses, permits, certificates of compliance or variances from BSEED when engaging in procurement activities with the Office of Contracting and Procurement, including bidding on contracts and being awarded city contracts, for participation in the Wayne County Treasurer tax foreclosure auction, where a blight clearance is required both to bid on properties as well as to receive a deed, and also to purchase real property from either the City of Detroit or the Detroit Land Bank Authority.