Everyone this we are now in session like to call to order the expanded budget finance and audit standing committee for today, March 30th, 2026.

Good morning, Madam Clerk.

Will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Scott Benson.

Councilmember Letitia Johnson.

Present.

Councilmember Denzel Anton McCampbell.

Present.

Councilmember Reneta Miller.

Member Miller did uh send a notice indicating that she would not be present.

She's dealing with uh family concerned at this moment.

Clerk will so not council member Gabriela Santiago Romero.

Present.

Councilmember Mary Waters, Councilmember Angela Whitfield Callaway.

Council President Pro Temperor Coleman A.

Young the Second.

Thank you.

Here.

Council President James Tate.

Here.

Mr.

President, you have a quorum present.

Thank you.

We have a quorum present, which means we're now in session.

Madam Clerk, I've neglected to indicate that Member Waters did send a memo indicating that she would not be present for this morning's session.

So uh that absence is excused as well.

Cycle so note.

Thank you so much.

Uh Pro Tim Young.

Mr.

President, I don't know if I could do this, but I just want to say for the sake of expediency.

I want just to admit all my questions to everyone writing, other than the city council divisions, because I might have to say something about that, but other than that, I'll just want to know if I could just kind of get ahead of the process, just submit all my questions in writing.

You just say hello to everybody as we can move ahead.

Would that be okay?

Yes.

And congratulations to the abudsman again.

All right.

Thank you so much, Pro Tim.

Just want to give everyone kind of a layer of the land on how today is going to go.

Uh today we are uh at last uh Friday we did end up suspending all of the budget hearings that were scheduled for today uh to allow for uh an hour from 10 until uh 11 for our oversight agencies to provide uh the body um their uh desire uh and presentation uh and need if you will for proportional funding uh as discussed initially last year and approved last year.

Uh did not see it in the uh mayor's proposed budget.

I wanted the um oversight agencies again to have an opportunity to come before this body and give a presentation narrowly focused on that area.

Uh so we will have all three.

We did have uh originally the umbudsman's office scheduled for 10 a.m.

Um but again we will not have full presentations from the oversight agencies.

Um but the we'll allow them to have an opening statement clearly, uh, but then we will go in secession.

Um their presentation solely focused on the uh proportional funding and the request for that in this particular budget.

Uh following that, uh we will then jump right into executive session.

Uh, we'll have Mr.

Corley give just a brief overview of where things are, uh, and then we will begin our executive session process.

We will not be having questions during the uh oversight agencies um presentation.

Uh there will be an opportunity to do that later at a later date, certainly through uh email and offline conversations, but because of how truncated our uh process is this year, we're trying to identify efficiencies, and that is the way that we agreed to do so again last Friday.

So we're wanted to make sure folks had an opportunity to understand the layer of the land.

We will have uh general public comment at the end of our uh executive session uh today, uh, and then we will have at 5 p.m.

the uh public hearing for the entire budget that will take place.

I believe we're gonna be down at the auditorium for that.

Okay.

All right, so that's the lay of the land and how things are intended and how we intend to uh um proceed and would like to call forward the um oversight agencies.

You can uh come forward, please, and we'll I don't know if you all decided amongst yourselves who will go first, probably since the 10 a.m.

was slated for uh madam umbudsman.

I don't know if you wanted to go first or not.

Um but however you all would like to do so, um that will be determined by you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

And for all, if you can make sure you hit that button in front of your in front of you and in front of that mic so the red turns green.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

Uh, thank you, Mr.

President, President Pro Tim, and all the honorable members of this body.

Uh thank you for the opportunity to come from the Ombudsman's office to present um our budget uh request today.

Certainly uh transforming our office um from a more uh to a more citizen-centered approach uh and applying and making sure that all of our members are staff members are now connected with your respective offices in partnership, the Detroit Office of Neighborhoods, uh, and as well as many of the department leaders working in collaboration to make sure that we create efficiency for all of Detroit residents.

Uh, we are standing today in unity with all the oversight agencies to ask for proportional funding as was passed by uh the city ordinance uh by your honorable body.

Certainly um you can see in a report that I would love to place on record uh the reports and the complaints that we received this year and we're processed from the fiscal year 2526, 3,462 uh complaints, also 884 submissions uh that were found online.

As a matter of fact, it was 2,357 legacy uh complaints found online, or I should say submissions that our office um are is working through, our assistant ombudsman's we are strengthening service delivery um to residents in the city of Detroit, again, transitioning from being reactive to proactive with a data-driven approach focused on accountability, access, and efficiency.

Uh we of course we took office in October 6, 2025, but we conducted a full audit uh of all of our departments and met with 21 department directors and found that in addition to addressing the systemic challenges that we saw, greater communication had to be established to make sure that we could identify those gaps.

And I am pleased that we were able to foster those relationships and partnerships with a number of high uh complaint areas, be it BC, DPW, uh GRD, as well as I got as well as DWSD, thank you.

Uh of course we took on new protocols and we're working to make sure that no complaint goes unaddressed.

We work directly with our vendor to address some of these needs as well, and so we are glad again about these partnerships, both having uh the focus on accountability, real-time accountability, and partnership.

You'll see that some of the highest needs uh broken down in your individual reports, of which I believe I'm not able to go into right now.

Uh, but the highest need in the city right now is BC'd.

Uh 59% of all the complaints come from that department, DPW, DWSD, and DPD as well.

Of course, illegal dumping.

And one of the members sent me a video last night.

Uh, and I'm grateful that Director Bell is out there this morning to address that issue that's both impacting District 1 and District 2.

Um, of course, we see based on the data that I shared with some of you, the highest volume of complaints are have been identified in District 3, and we're making sure that we work again collaboratively with your respective offices to give you the support you need to our office uh and hopefully we can continue building on that trajectory.

New leadership in my office have been identified uh with my chief of staff, Linda Wesley, Deputy Chief Alan Montgomery, and he's also assistant education ombudsman in our office.

And we've also established partnerships with the Department of Neighborhoods to shift to our big idea of being again uh proactive, identifying the root causes of these solutions and having cross-agency collaboration.

What you see on the screen is a breakdown by your individual districts of the high need uh complaints that exist there, but again, we won't go through those numbers individually.

It just really kind of echoes the need to make sure that we do work in collaboration and want to make sure that your body is able to get the reports that you need from us in a timely manner, uh, quarterly, bi-monthly, or however you'd like to proceed, and even perhaps give access to some of our data uh so that you can see how to improve the high uh zip codes or pressure areas in your respective districts.

I believe that there is a zip code breakdown that shows also a number of the needs, and we can go to the next slide, we won't stay there.

But if you look at this graph that kind of show in color some of the high pressure areas, again, we will place it on record so that you all and the public can see where those areas are.

We do have to continue working together.

We've made key um efforts to explore technology upgrades.

I shared with some of you a number that you can access.

It's just a demo, because we found that having complaints that are sitting in our system are not serving the public well.

So we want to make sure that we close any of those uh gaps that in the system.

We need citywide uh standard operating procedures, and perhaps again, I know that we're going to look for it and passing the AI policy in our meeting would do it.

They express that.

So hopefully we can explore that a little bit more.

I think it's important as well that we improve our communications infrastructure and perhaps invest in a podcast that all of your members uh can participate in and educate the public, but we can as well.

I am grateful that we were able to work with uh both uh the tax department, uh, Miss Director Whitlow, Director Dunwell, and Director Daniels from the land bank department, uh, the Board of Review and the tax department to host conversations in the community, and those were highly attended by residents, and our goal again is to work in tandem with these departments to reduce backlogs.

Um, I won't belabor the hour, but what I want to draw your attention to is the last page of my report 16 that really does speak to why we're really here today is to talk about uplifting the need to make sure that these investments uh in this new direction does not uh be impacted by now taking away the proportional funding that was committed to in your past ordinance uh based on the mayor's budget.

Uh that would be from my respective budget, the 314,752 ramp up uh that should be there, plus one FTE at 65,000 um is actually impacting our budget.

So I am asking, humbly asking that your honorable body work to restore the funding with the appropriate annual ramp up as outlined by the adopted proportional funding ordinance to ensure that our office can continue the citizen-focused trajectory outlined in this report.

I think I did that in about six minutes, seven minutes.

Thank you.

I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Um, come on, Maribel, City of Detroit, Inspector General.

Um, I'm going to also uh try to get through this very quickly.

Uh you all also have our presentation.

Um, so we're going to go strictly to the part that speaks to proportional funding and then some of the results of proportional funding.

Uh so the 2012 revised charter did more than create the OIG.

It recognized that oversight agencies can cannot function without stable, protected funding.

To address this, uh the charter explicitly requires City Council to pass a proportional funding ordinance within 90 days.

This was not optional, it was structural safeguard intended to ensure the independence and prevent underfunding.

Without such a measure, the OIG and the other oversight agencies would be cut because it's not first-of-mine priority, but critical to the contributing uh trust in government.

Next slide.

Despite the clarity of the charter, the required ordinance was not passed until this honorable body acted in 2025.

Uh, in fairness, there was a period of time when the city was dealing with fiscal emergency culminating in the city entering bankruptcy.

During that time, the OIG uh operated without the funding protections envisioned by the Charter, limiting its ability to fully carry out its mission.

Key milestones to proportional funding.

True progress began in 2022 when the OIG, through our former Inspector General Ellen Ha, who was the first to raise the question of why the Charter mandated ordinance had not been uh implemented, which ultimately led to the passage of the proportional funding ordinance in July 24.

The ordinance finally established a framework, but still required a funding formula to be adopted by resolution.

2025 funding formula for proportional funding.

The funding formula adopted in April 25 represents an important step toward compliance.

It included a three-year ramp up rather than immediate implementation.

This was volunteered in all faith by the four oversight agents agencies to lessen the impact of the implementation of proportional funding on the overall budget.

But achieving the appropriate budget over the three years and assuring charter mandate would be realized.

Since its creation, the OIG has never been fully funded.

We came into being in the shadow of financial uh uh management and bankruptcy.

But even after recovery, funding was a year-by-year proposition, having having to fight for funds to be restored to an uh already meager and insufficient budget.

Uh this reflects a broader issue that oversight has not been consistently uh prioritized.

That's why the charter required the ordinance and last year's council created and approved it.

Why proportional funding matters?

This approach aligns Detroit with with the major other major cities that have established OIG offices and similar oversight bodies, inclusive of Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami Dave, reinforcing that this is the best practice in municipal governance.

Proportional funding is a key is key because it helps preserve the OIG's independence and ensures we have the capacity to operate effectively, regardless of changes in administration or budget pressures.

Ultimately, the structure is vital to building and maintaining trust and confidence in city government is and is being uh monitored fairly, transparently, and without influence.

So this slide is is very important.

Um, just to say that it's just not my words.

This is the commentary that came out of the charter.

So that there is no misunderstanding to the intent of the drafters of the charter.

This commentary makes it clear that the oversight is not optional.

It's essential.

By tying funding proportionally to the city budget, it ensures the OIG can keep up with growing demands and continue to serve in as an independent check on fraud, abuse, waste, and corruption.

The hard work is done.

Your Honorable Body passed both the ordinance and the accompanying resolution.

It would have been nice if if the budget department would have respected that action and budgeted the oversight departments accordingly to the ordinance and resolution.

But we and my fellow uh but me and my fellow oversight agencies knew that it would fall to council, and so it has.

So just want to give a quick overlay of what we've done with the funding.

So this uh year one funding was not uh theoretical.

It produced immediate tangible results.

By creating the manager of investigations in audit position, we aligned with national best practices and strengthened the ability to conduct effective oversight.

The investment also positions us for peer review, which is critical for our credibility.

In short, the initial funding directly translated into increased capacity and accountability.

Yet, even though we added a significant number of complaints, we didn't slow down.

Instead, we became significantly more efficient.

Closure times on non-jurisdictional complaints dropped by 89 percent.

This demonstrates a clear return on investment.

Additional resources allowed us to handle more work uh effectively with an improved turnaround time.

Public demand is growing uh for oversight and it's not static, it's accelerating.

We are on track for more than double our complaint volume since 2024.

The increase is directly tied to expanded outreach and growing public awareness.

Importantly, we do not turn people away.

Every resident who contacts our uh us receives a response.

And when we cannot assist directly because we lack jurisdiction, we help uh connect them to the right resource.

This is what responsive government looks like, but it requires an equitable investment.

So finally, uh the need for uh year two ramp up.

As noted uh before and worth emphasizing, demand for OIG services is more than doubled since 2024.

We are on track for continued growth uh this year.

While year one investments improved efficiency, especially in the complaint and intake stage, we are now seeking to improve turnaround time on investigations and audits.

Without additional resources, we risk slowing down the very progress we've made, particularly in investigation and audit timelines as well as overall responsive.

So our uh total FY26 uh 27 requests, uh $2,577,947, which is inclusive of both our ramp up amount and the money that was taken out for for budget.

They actually decreased um our budget on top of not providing the uh proportional funding.

Uh our year two request is targeted and strategic.

It builds directly on what's already working.

Additional investigators will allow us to keep pace with rising complaints, which typically result in rising investigation.

The intake specialist will further streamline case triage and ensure uh continued efficiency at the front end.

Two new investigators will allow us to increase efficiency and turnaround time for investigations as well as free up our auditors to focus more specifically on forensic audits.

Reclassifying our two excess executive uh investigators to senior roles, strengthened supervision, quality, and case complexity management.

This is not expansion for its own sake.

It is scaling to meet demonstrated demand as well as improve the overall efficiency and operations of the OIG.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'd like to thank this honorable body for making proportional funding possible this fiscal year.

The because of proportional funding, the Board of Ethics has been able to expand its operations and take on initiatives that were impossible prior to the implementation of proportional funding.

In order to continue the progress made in the last year, it is necessary to continue the ramp up as stipulated in the proportional funding ordinance.

A second investigator and a marketing and outreach coordinator.

The addition of a second investigator has assisted the Board of Ethics in expanding our ability to handle the workload of investigations, requests for advisory opinions, complaints, and review of disclosures.

The marketing and outreach coordinator has assisted in public outreach efforts and ethics training.

The increase in funds also went toward the creation of a learning management system to build a more robust online ethics training program with the goal of increasing the number of public servants trained.

Training specialist Michael O'Connell and marketing and outreach coordinator Brandon Flynn have been integral in building the new learning management system.

Mr.

O'Connell is here today to provide more information on the rollout of the learning management system.

Thank you.

So the learning management system, we selected ClearCo as our uh supplier for that service, and we launched our staggered implementation earlier this month on March 16th.

Uh, in the first 10 days, we had 6.5% of public servants uh open and complete their introductory module uh while we work on some of the initial implementation bugs that you can expect with new technology.

Um and the the system as it's as it stands and with our implementation plan for the rest of this year uh indicates a fundamental change in ethics education in Detroit.

It's no longer just a certificate that you can earn once every once in a while.

Uh as required, it will be more immersive and what we hope will be a foundational part of being a public servant in Detroit instead.

Thank you, Mr.

Al Connell.

Um so to keep this brief, this is our budget request.

Um so the mayor's um fiscal year 2627 proposed budget for the Board of Ethics is 817,550 544 dollars, which is an eighty-two thousand two hundred forty-four dollar decrease from this year's budget of eight hundred and ninety-nine thousand seven hundred eighty eight dollars.

This does not abide by the proportional funding resolution, which is the law, nor does it account for the recurring cost of the learning management system and hiring two new staff members.

These achievements are contingent on proportional funding and cannot be sustained with a decrease in our budget.

With that in mind, our supplemental request for next fiscal year is 282,244 dollars.

This includes the eighty-two thousand two hundred forty-four dollar shortfall plus the two hundred thousand dollar ramp up promised in the proportional funding ordinance.

Um, so this is a total amount of one, ninety-nine thousand seven hundred eighty-eight dollars for fiscal year 2627.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Corley, uh, just uh for clarity, and I know this uh for the record, we did have the uh budget hearing for the uh auditor general uh already, so that's why the for the public they may not see that oversight agency here today.

Uh assuming that's why uh they didn't show up because we did have that um budget hearing.

Mr.

Corley, I believe we placed uh into executive session a proportional funding for the uh auditor general.

Is that correct, sir?

Uh good morning.

Uh Mr.

President City Council.

So, yes, that is correct.

Okay, colleagues, can I get a motion, please to place into executive session the uh uh amounts that has been requested by uh all four of the oversight agencies that is the umbudsman's office, the inspector general, um, the uh Board of Ethics, as well as the already mentioned uh auditor general.

Motion discussion, it's a motion on the floor with discussion.

Uh member Benson.

Yourself to Mr.

Corder, can we please ensure that each department individual the individual ask is theirs with clarity for council discussions?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Well, thank you all.

We appreciate it.

Um, I know this is a little different than how we've done it in years past, but a little different on this side of the table as well.

We've got that information, we've placed it into executive session.

I know very clearly that there, if there's any additional questions, that we will be uh making those questions uh known to you to provide an opportunity for responses.

But before we wrap up, we've always given everyone an opportunity for a closing statement.

We weren't gonna do any questions just yet, but I know there may be some additional motions.

Um member Santiago Romero.

Mr.

President, thank you.

We need to close out the votes for the motion that was made.

Yes, thank you for keeping me on.

There's a motion on the floor, colleagues, because we were in discussion.

My apologies.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Thank you again, Member Santiago.

Uh so any uh closing remarks.

I'm sure I know what that closing remarks gonna be.

Um, but uh we want to give you a chance to do that since we do have time before the 11 o'clock hour.

Well, I'd just like to thank you, Mr.

President, President Pro Tim and this honorable body, first of all, for the motion to move forward and hearing our need to adhere to the ordinance for proportional funding.

Um we're working together to turn challenges into opportunities to improve the quality of life for Detroiters.

Um I didn't get a chance to talk about my recommendations on record, but uh we're working with CREO with a uh for an ASL uh requirement notification.

We're working with BC uh as many of you are to address violations.

We want to suggest um legislative fix for LLCs to identify property owners.

We want to make sure that the entire city starts looking at standard operating procedures and maybe incorporating the use of AI.

We also sent you the AI receptionist, and it's just a demo.

We also talked about the City of Detroit podcast.

So there are a number of needs that we are working again in tandem with the City of Detroit as well as I mean with the City of Detroit leadership, uh, as well as on education, mental health, uh, Mr.

President, after school recreation and education, addressing some of the transportation challenges that children have.

We applaud what you've already done, but uh, we also believe there needs to be an ordinance to stop the surge of some of the transportation companies that increase their prices during and after school hours that adversely impact parents that can't afford transportation.

They're surging their prices far above the cost that they traditionally uh charge.

So we hope that your body will look at perhaps an ordinance to address that as well.

So thank you again uh for hearing our concern about proportional funding.

Thank you.

Just just real briefly, thank you all for the opportunity.

Just want to point out that this is one run, one more run up the ladder for the commitment that council made last year to get the oversight agencies to that level.

Um so um if if you all entertain and provide the uh the next step uh will be one step closer um to us not having these conversations um anymore.

It it's difficult uh as being oversight agencies for us to have this conversation you know with with council and to kind of I won't I won't say big, but um to be in a situation to ask for the fairness and the priority that um that other agencies get uh off the rip.

So we just want to thank you all for the opportunity, and we're available to answer any questions that you may have going forward.

Thank you.

With this will uh uh director Phillips to uh conclude.

I want to thank this honorable body again.

Um I was unable to go through um the board's recommendations.

It is in our annual report, which is forthcoming this week.

Um, but one is um quicker appointment of board members, and I'd like to thank uh this honorable body for appointing our joint member um who will be joining us next month um at our board meeting, so we will have a full board, and that was one of our challenges last year um that we could not have quorum at our last three meetings of 2025 due to lack of quorum.

Um so thank you again and for continuing to work with me on uh the quicker appointment of board members.

Um several of you have discussed with me the possibility of amending the ethics ordinance and city charter um for various reasons, and I'd like to continue working um with you all on that achievement and um and also your cooperation with disclosures.

We are working with the administration on that, and we are thankful to um uh Mayor Sheffield for providing the mayoral disclosures for this year.

Um, but I will continue working with you all on other disclosures um so we can all have that and um uh be in line with the ethics ordinance.

Um, I believe this is a pivotal moment for the board of ethics, and um, without your support, we would be unable to do all that we have achieved this year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh member Benson.

All right, thank you.

Um through yourself to Mr.

Corley, I appreciate the ask and the fact that we're going to have this conversation later, but I also want to verify.

And so, Mr.

Corley LPD, if you call could verify the amount that should be there as per the escalations, not that we don't trust, but we trust and we verify.

So we just want to make sure that all the numbers tie to what the law states that we are supposed to be allocating to the oversight um departments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional motions on the floor.

See none.

We again want to thank you all for joining us this morning, and we will certainly be in touch as we move forward in this budget process.

Yes, sir.

Good morning.

So my team is now making hard copies of all of the spreadsheets.

I'm going to appreciate it.

Sure.

Mayor.

Oh my deal with two young ladies.