Ok Mr. Bing. You're in. Now please do the following...

[lo_to_d]

Tax what we don't want, not what we want.
1. Announce a five year plan to eliminate city income tax. Not cut, eliminate it. We can't compete with the suburbs if we continue to tax what we want to have [[ie, income for our residents and businesses).

2. Replace the lost revenue with the following taxes [[which could be instituted first to stop the current bleeding);
a) Double the property tax on abandoned, commercial buildings in and around downtown. We need to get rid of the speculators who are doing nothing but letting their buildings rot. There are many people who would buy and upgrade these buildings if they were not overpriced. Higher taxes would encourage building owners to sell their abandoned buildings for less money. If you get a tenant, the tax goes back down.
b) Tax city employees who do not live in the city, at the higher current income tax rate [[including casino workers) [[This would take a change in state legistlation, but can be done).
c) Start a 5 cent per gallon gasoline tax to encourage public transit.
d) Charge a $2 tax for cars to go on Belle Isle, tax by the car, not people.
I could think of many more, but you get the idea. Brainstorm... some might be good ideas and some not, but imo the worst is taxing income when the surrounding areas don't.

3. Announce a five year plan to lure any businesses currently located in the suburbs to move downtown. You have the business connections, find out what it will take for the companies currently located in Warren, Southfield, Troy, etc. to move downtown [[including at least some of channel 2 and 7 broadcasting). Currently, one reason for them to do it is because young talent is attracted to downtowns, not suburbs. I'm sure their number one reason not to is the high taxes.

What things do you want to see Bing accomplish? Please give a detailed start plan.

[professorscott]

Why not just cut the cost of city government, which is still designed to serve a city of 2 million people, and only have the staffing levels the suburban communities have? Then you could lower the property tax, eliminate the income tax and not have to do things that violate the Michigan constitution [[such as a local government charging a tax on gasoline).

[Crumbled_pavement]

First . . .

Tax city employees who do not live in the city, at the higher current income tax rate [[including casino workers).

Then . . .

imo the worst is taxing income when the surrounding areas don't.

I'm confused . . .

[buzzman0077]

I agree with most of those points. I don't like the idea of a 2 dollar charge to get onto belle isle. There must be a better way to make up the difference.

[lo_to_d]

You could still walk or bike across to Belle Isle for free.

As for the confusion of increasing the income tax on city employees who do not live in the city... Most people, who live in the city, want the city employees to live in the city too, When they changed the law, it contributed to the population vacuum. So I say keep the income tax on them to encourage city employees to live in the city.

As for the Michigan state laws... they are very anti-urban. That's a big reason why our cities have such problems.

I want to hear other peoples ideas for Bing.

[ejames01]

The gas tax would be silly. People would just cross the border to fill up.

[Patrick]

Announce a five year plan to lure any businesses currently located in the suburbs to move downtown.

Yeah man, come work downtown where you have to pay to park and pay city income tax.

[lilpup]

If you want to truly tax what isn't desirable then tax the strip clubs. They can afford it.

Make better use of potentially money earning venues like Chene Park Ampitheater. Book that place right and it could pay for the Parks and Rec department.

Eliminating the city income tax would be nice but it's not realistic at this point, nor is taxing non-residents more for working in the city. The latter is also bad policy.

[E hemingway]

Income tax makes up about 15 percent of the city's revenue stream. Property taxes are about 12 percent. Cutting property taxes significantly first would make a bigger impact and cost less than cutting the income tax. Ideally, the income tax should go and property tax made competitive with the suburbs. There is the possibility of some real progress to be made on these two fronts when the city charter is revised. Whoever sits on that charter commission after this fall will have more power to shape the way Detroit's government works and how much it takes out of your pocket than some members of City Council.

[Locke09]

The City cannot realistically afford to reduce either property or income tax right now [[as much as I wish they would). Expenditures have to be significantly reduced in order to reduce the taxes.

Now, it doesn't make sense to call for elimination of staff unless you call for elimination of services as well. There is no featherbedding occuring. Every agency is severely short staffed now. You might argue that Council and the Mayor's Office have too much staffing, but for the agencies, you're going to have to talk about which services you want to eliminate.

So, please let Mayor Bing know which services you think can be eliminated.

And why compare Detroit staffing levels to suburban staffing levels? How many suburbs provide street lighting, sidewalks, transportation of the level that Detroit provides, etc.?Many provide fewer types of services, but they do those fewer services better.

[digitalvision]

Although folks heart is in the right place, the practicality isn't there. Some of the things you propose I don't think are legal... and others are folly [[like the gas tax). In fact, your idea on the gas tax is taxing a bunch of poor people even more who are barely making it because most of the people who can afford it are going to just go get gas when they go home, hurting Detroit gas stations and just hurting Detroiters.

Here are some solutions I think would work.

1) The city owns a veritable shitload of parking spaces. Make them free for the first two hours with validation to all businesses within the CBD, and do the same for neighborhood commercial centers throughout the city [[seems as though many of plans seem to forget the city exists past the T district). After that, $3 or $5 max. Even on game days.

2) Strip clubs aren't the answer. That doesn't help you but a few pennies when you need a lot more. Stop looking for new revenue and start right sizing government and get out of ALL non-essential tasks. Fire, police, EMS, etc. and everything else is a "if we can" basis.

3) One area to increase revenue is Belle Isle. Sorry, free Belle isle is NOT practical. The city simply cannot afford it, even though I understand the racial and historical ties to it being a free place.

So I agree with the charge for cars - and it'll get the riffraff off from when I used to live across from it and it'd be bumpin' at 3 in the moanin'. That doesn't belong on a family park, plain and simple, and Belle Isle needs a revenue stream. It can't be a Metropark - the system doesn't want it.

4) Start shutting down almost empty neighborhoods. There's simply no way to cover that much land with services. It's not popular, but it's also the only thing to do. There is almost zero tax revenue in some of these areas. Have Oprah come speak for it, it'll go over just fine [[i.e. it's all about how you sell it). Bring it back when it fills up again.

[Locke09]

digitalvision,

I agree with 1, 2 and 3. 2 is the most important. That's why I keep asking what services people think can be eliminated. My priority services I have said are public safety, street lighting, refuse/bulk [[all those things DPW does) and transportation. The revenue generating agencies, which pay for themselves [[Water, Buildings and Safety, etc.) would also naturally remain.

[hudkina]

The average Detroiter doesn't have to pay the 83.62880 mills. Any property that is listed as a homestead gets the 18 mill credit, and basically ends up paying 65.62880 mills, of which a little more than 1/10th goes toward the city's debt. Even if you count the school bonds [[for which most residents basically don't have to pay), the number isn't even remotely near 2/3.

[Locke09]

No matter how you slice it and dice it, I think it's safe to say that less than half of the property taxes paid go to city services. Less than a third if you're not getting the homestead credit. The rest is County [[which rivals the number of mills you pay to the city, and I don't feel Wayne County does much of anything for Detroit, without charging Detroit), School tax [[DPS and State Education), debt tax and library.

Detroit General Fund is only 30 mills. How does that part alone compare to the suburbs? We also have to keep in mind that Detroit provides [[or is supposed to provide) some services suburbs don't, or at least not to the same degree, like street lighting and sidewalk maintenance.

[ThaFuzz]

In all of the analysis, I've yet to see anyone inquire about the unicorns.

[szla]

! sell the water department to a metropolitan authority for about 5 billion. spread the payments to the city over about 12-15 [[300 million per year?) this would give the city 12-15 years to get their house in order.
2 dump the public lighting dept. or sell it to edison. there would be some one who would be accountable. and the lights would eventually be back on.
3 reduce the city income tax to 1 percent for residents .5 percent non res. you could do this with the new money from the sale of the water dept. you could do this reduction over 5 years to ease in your costs.
4 establish a "new resident" homestead tax credit. some sort of reduction in property tax and a 1 percent income tax immediately which in five years the old residents would also have. have special programs for both the buyer and renter populations.
5 cap the threshold amount for paying income tax at about 100.000.00 to discourage people from moving out when they start to make real money. have the threshold go up according an inflation index. possibly even make it no tax for people who make more than a million as the resulting economic activity from services for these people would more than make up the tax that you never had in the first place,
6. sell or dump the dot to smart. detroit being in southeast michigan is eligible to be member of smart. you than take the small milliage and i believe you'd be 20-50 ahead. the vast majority of riders are in the city and smart would be obligated to address these riders.
7 make historic preservation an essential part of your administration.
love sincerely, szla

[crawford]

IMO Detroit can't cut ANY taxes right now. None. They have no revenue as it is.

If casino revenue ever dropped, the entire budget would be blown up. The city would go under.

The "increase taxes on vacant property" idea would have the opposite effect. You would chill any investment on vacant properties, and you would get a TON of foreclosed properties.

You are missing the point with vacant properties. They are not undeveloped because the owners are crappy or incentivized to hold the land; they are undeveloped because there is absolutely no economic incentive to build or renovate anywhere in downtown right now absent significant subsidies.

[Hypestyles]

downscale city departments that don't really do much/overlap.. truly take the "right-sizing" initiative, and look to shut down depopulated neighborhoods.. encourage more greenspace development..

[Novine]

"Even if you count the school bonds [[for which most residents basically don't have to pay), the number isn't even remotely near 2/3."

More wrong information. Everyone who pays city property taxes is paying the school debt taxes. The only exception might be in Ren. Zones but the normal rules for any taxes don't apply in those areas.

[2blocksaway]

It would be nice if he just did something.

It's been a little over a month and he has been pretty much invisible.

[DetroitPlanner]

Property taxes go into a lot more budgets than just the City's. The DPS, WC3, the County, Metroparks and several others all get a chunck. I can recall when the school capital millage passed in the mid-90's my property taxes jumped about 20 percent. In order to make a significant cut to the taxes, we must pay off not just Detroit's debts but the debts of a lot of other agencies.

Its not as simple as saying Detroit can cut the property taxes because Detroit don't control all of the property taxes.

There are people who do not live in the City [[namely higher income non-trouble causing folks) who stay away simply because the taxes in total are too high. There are some suburbs where the taxes are not significantly different that Detroit's, particularly when you consider the average cost of housing. Anything you can do to cut taxes accross the board will be an improvement, particularly for people who work downtown and don't want to drive in from places like Canton or Washington Townships, but only do so because of the cost of taxes.

By cutting taxes you also get more people to make geographically rational decisions about where they will live. This will also reduce the need to widen roads or have long bus/transit commutes. Higher taxes drive people away a lot more than the typical race card excuse most folks unfairly throw into the face of suburbanites.

Unproductive properties are not just because they are owned by a slumlord. Many in Detroit have serious economic or environmental conditions to consider. For example, one of the reasons why Detroit does not have more stores and its citizens all shop in the suburbs could be tied to the taxes that the businesses have to pay to keep a business open within the City limits as opposed to opening one literally acorss the street in paces like Dearborn or Southfield. Lowering taxes make those properties productive and puts people to work who in turn pay taxes.

Oh Mr. Bing, mow the lawns of the neighborhood parks. Its ridiculus.

[Fnemecek]

Property taxes go into a lot more budgets than just the City's. The DPS, WC3, the County, Metroparks and several others all get a chunk. I can recall when the school capital millage passed in the mid-90's my property taxes jumped about 20 percent. In order to make a significant cut to the taxes, we must pay off not just Detroit's debts but the debts of a lot of other agencies.

Amen! This is why I've advocated for a wholesale refinancing and restructuring of our debts: City of Detroit + Detroit Public Schools + Wayne County.

It's the only way we'll ever free up enough room to provide badly needed tax relief and still make improvements to government services.

[Crew]

How much does unicorn meat go for these days?