Wyandotte Budget Committee Members Have a Long List of Ideas for City Leaders

Members of the newly formed had their first official meeting Monday where they discussed ways they believe could help the city balance next year's budget.

Anticipating a deficit between $1.1 million and $1.8 million, Mayor Joseph Peterson appointed 12 residents to the committee to drum up ideas that politicians perhaps hadn't already thought of.

The volunteers were given copies of many of the city's financial documents and asked to brainstorm ways the city could bring in more money, as well as prioritize what city services should remain unaffected and which ones should be considered for revisions or outright elimination.

Committee members went around the room and shared their initial suggestions,  as well as set goals for their upcoming meetings.

Some of the ideas tossed around Monday were:

• Increasing user fees.
• Fining people who fail to get licenses to do work in the city.
• Mandating furlough days for city workers.
• Consolidating with other cities for animal control by building a new in Wyandotte and charging other cities to utilize it.
• Creating a dog park and charging people to use it.
• Reinstating "no parking" signs on residential streets and actively ticketing those who disobey them.
• Marketing the city's empty lots to get them sold quicker.
• Continuing with the plans to bring a marina to Wyandotte.
• Offering companies the option for naming rights to city events and city buildings.
• Asking the nonprofits who operate parking lots during city events to give a portion of their proceeds back to the city.
• Charging to park in the city, whether by pay lots or meters.
• Printing the city's legal notices online rather than in the local newspaper.
• Lowering the city's photocopying costs, possibly by contracting out with an outside vendor to print items that are repetitively copied.
• Bringing an indoor soccer league to the when ice is pulled up for the summer.
• Bringing benefit concerts and well-known entertainers to Yack Arena.
• Consolidating elections so the city and school elections occur at the same time.
• Having the city, not nonprofits, operate the parking lots during all city events.
• Beginning a magnet school to train apprentices.
• Installing more around town to collect and make money on people dropping off their paper.
• Combining the and into one public safety director.
• Putting firefighters on 12-hour shifts, rather than 24-hour shifts.
• Offering an amnesty program for people to clear up old tickets without additional fines.
• Using college students to help with public relations and grant writing.
• Conducting a salary audit to ensure the top 25 paid city employees are earning an amount that's in-line with similar communities.
• Partnering with area businesses to share services and to get things done for the city cheaper or at no cost.
• Collaborating with other .
• Renting out city-owned green space and meeting rooms in city-owned buildings.
• Going after a grant to create a .
• Changing the city to a four-day workweek to save on energy costs.
• Marketing the city's many railroad tracks to Amtrak in hopes of securing a station in Wyandotte.
• Conducting a citywide IT audit.
• Changing the landlines in all city-owned buildings to VOIP (voice over Internet protocol).
• Converting the city's nonunion, non-administrative personnel to purchase service classification to eliminate insurance and fringe benefit costs.
• Purchasing office supplies and equipment in bulk.
• Using the online site, propertyroom.com, to sell off unneeded city property.
• Asking voters to approve a special needs millage.