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ROSEVILLE — Roseville’s financial future is looking bright.
Following a presentation by Roseville Controller John Walters, the City Council approved the 2024-25 budget at its April 23 meeting. The motions to adopt the Community Development Block Grant resolution and the budget resolution were unanimously approved at the meeting.
“It’s good to see we’re moving up and not fighting the state of Michigan,” Roseville Mayor Robert Taylor said following Walters’ presentation.
General fund
The city draws out of the general fund for any service, except for the library. The total revenue for the fund in 2024-2025 is expected to be $45,913,208. Expenditures for the city are not expected to exceed revenue, making for a balanced budget. Police and fire take up the bulk of expenditures at over 40%.
“If you were to compare every department this year to last year, you’d see a pretty healthy increase because inflation has been pretty significant year over year,” Walters said. “Fortunately, our increase in revenue is more than our increase in expenditures. As long as that’s the case, I think we’re in decent shape.”
Walters said actual spending for the general fund is projected to be $42.2 million.
“Within that dollar amount, though, there is a built-in surplus of $1.7 million,” Walters said. “So we are budgeting for a surplus for the year.”
The general fund balance has been rising since 2020. There had been a steady decline since 2009. At that time, the fund balance was nearly $12 million. The lowest point was in 2020 when the balance was just over $2 million, but it has creeped back up in subsequent years. In 2025, it’s expected to exceed the $12 million mark.
Property taxes and state-shared revenue
Property taxes make up the largest slice of the general fund revenue pie at $24,989,102 (54% of what the city takes in). The next largest revenue source is state-shared revenue at $6,309,517. Walters said that both of these streams of revenue are out of the city’s control.
“Combined, that’s just under 70% of our total revenue comes in from property taxes and state-shared revenue, which are out of our control frankly,” Walters said at the meeting. “Property taxes are based on property values of the city, and state-shared revenue comes from state appropriations. Only 30% of our revenue we can kind of determine.”
Assessed value for the city is on the upward swing. In 2010, the value was just under $1.4 billion and started to drop, hitting a low in 2014 of $861 million. Walters said values are back where they were before the drop. In 2023, the assessed value was over $1.4 billion. This is expected to trend upward with the assessed value projected to be more than $1.7 billion in 2025.
“Our assessed values are back to where they were 13 years ago,” Walters said.
The property tax revenue taken into the general fund is also on the rise. This type of revenue is based on taxable value, not assessed value, Walters explained. It can’t go up with assessed value and can only go up according to the state’s inflation rate or 5%, whichever is less, for primary residences.
Like the assessed values, 2010 is where things start to dip for the city. In 2010, $23.7 million was received. The city hit a low in 2014 with $18.2 million collected. Things improved from this point, but there was a sharp decrease in 2021. Walters explains this is due to moving things out of the general fund.
“The decrease in 2021, that was because of the move of police and fire retirement costs out of the general fund and put in its own fund,” Walters said.
From 2021, things have been on the mend with revenue from property taxes expected to be at $24.3 million by 2025, surpassing 2010.
The city’s shared-state revenue had been trending downward since 2001. That year, just over $6 million was brought in. This decline hit a low in 2010 when the city took in just over $4 million. In 2024, the city is projected to get over $6 million but is just shy of what was pulled in, in 2001.
“Not quite to where we were in 2001, but we’re close,” Walters said at the meeting.
CDBG funds
Community Development Block Grant funds are annual grant dollars from the federal government used to fund public service organizations and projects in a municipality.
Jim Gammicchia, administrative services specialist for community & economic development in the city, said the $530,000 expected to be allocated to the city is a conservative figure. The city has not received approval yet, but he said he expects the final figure to be higher.
“The stars aligned this year,” Gammicchia said. “We’re only allowed to commit 15% of our total allocation to public service organizations. It just worked out that the requests that came in were in that 15%.”
However, Gammicchia said there has been an overall decrease in the funds each year.
Some of the funds go for specific city projects, with $180,000 to code enforcement, $129,000 to City Hall bathroom updates, $106,000 in administrative costs and $35,000 for the demolition of the American Legion hall at 28444 Utica Road.
Representatives from Hearts 4 Homes, Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers, Maggie’s Wigs 4 Kids of Michigan, Care House and Turning Point came out to request additional funds for their services.
“I thank them for coming out tonight and for the great work they do in our community,” Gammicchia said. “Many of their expenses and services to Roseville residents exceed their allocation from CDBG.”
Before the public hearing was closed, Taylor offered a similar sentiment and thanked the representatives for coming out.
“If it was up to me, we would give you tons of money,” Taylor said.
