Detroit’s 2025-26 Budget Includes Some Losers, Many Winners
It’s a sign of Detroit’s improving financial health that the $3 billion budget that City Council unanimously approved in early April for the 2025-26 fiscal year includes more funding for many critical services and cultural institutions. This is the twelfth straight year that Detroit has balanced the budget since it went through bankruptcy in 2014.
After years of tension between the Detroit Land Bank Authority and the City Council, the Council voted to eliminate its subsidy to the DLBA, saying that since the DLBA already has a reserve of $52 million, it doesn’t need any more of the city’s money.
Is this a step toward making the quasi-independent Land Bank a part of the city government? Some Council members, including Mayoral candidate Mary Sheffield, have been saying that the DLBA should be folded into the Housing & Revitalization Department. Will the DLBA cut back on its services rather than dip into its $52 million reserve? We don’t yet know, but since the DLBA owns so many properties in Morningside, this is a situation that bears close watching.
Public transportation advocates were a very vocal part of the budget process. They proposed doubling the DDOT budget over the next five years, beginning with an additional $16 million over the $20 million Mayor Duggan had already requested. (DDOT has a total budget of $209 million). The Council voted down the $16 million request from public transit advocates, but with the original $20 million funding boost, DDOT will hire more bus drivers, improve bus shelters, and make other upgrades to buses.
Here are the budget allocations that received unanimous Council support:
$5 million for a Community Land Trust Fund
$3 million for the “ShotStoppers” community violence intervention program
$2 million for the Department of Transportation to build bus shelters and hire drivers
$1 million added to a Housing Trust Fund used to develop affordable housing
$500,000 to the Office of Eviction Defense to improve outreach efforts
$300,000 to clean 1,000 alleys across the city
The Community Land Trust, which is aimed at providing low-cost housing, is a project that our Councilmember Latisha Johnson has been advocating for a number of years. Councilmember Johnson also was able to get into the budget a provision for $200,000 in recurring funding to create a public website that tracks the status of development projects.
The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit Institute of Arts, and Detroit Historical Museum also got more funding.
This list includes just a small slice of the final budget. Thanks to the folks at Bridge Detroit and Outlier Media, who have covered the budget process extensively over the past several months, you can find all the details, starting here.
