Everyone's milling around figuring out how to make Zoom work

The agenda can be found here: detroitmi.gov/sites/detroitm…

Still figuring out how to broadcast the meeting.

The meeting has begun! Jay B. Rising, CFO of the City of Detroit, introduced everybody and they approved the minutes.

First up, Gabriel Ehrlich, Director of U of M's Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics is giving an overview of the economic situation in Detroit

Ehrlich is optimistic, and notes that job numbers have been recovering well from the pandemic. Notably, though blue collar jobs and jobs that don't require a college degree have "recovered"*, what Ehrlich calls "Higher Ed Services" have not recovered.

*we say recovered, but employment numbers reflect people employed in any capacity as a share of people in the labor market, and cannot speak to underemployment or numerous other important contextual factors that better reflect "how people are doing"

Talking about the unequal distribution of prosperity in Detroit, Ehrlich notes that the proportion of "low income" households are about double the national average

Ehrlich: we are less optimistic today than when we generated our report, and signs point somewhat to an incoming recession.

George Fulton, Director Emeritus of the RSQE, noted that Detroit's employment numbers respond very sensitively to the Fed messing with interest rates

Just note: what the Fed is doing now(and recently) is attempting control inflation. To do this, they have been gradually raising interest rates to make money "more expensive" and, essentially, kick-starting a recession to make people stop hiring and stop raising wages.

Once they feel they have accomplished this, they will stop raising interest rates, and, perhaps lower them in order to not make employment SO bad that people stop being willing to take it.

That is to say: You, Detroit, have been agitating for higher wages, better conditions, and fewer hours for the past few years. You've taken to the streets, you've struck. The federal government would prefer you stop that.

Moving on to the city revenue update: the wind up is that the city expects a very modest (about one and a half percent) increase in revenue in the coming year.

Online gambling revenue is becoming more and more significant year over year, which is reflected in the graphs.

Thread continues here: https://x.com/NachumDetroit/status/1833209905421156525?t=5yonFQu8OH9ANOroz_Kg6g&s=19

The casinos are, in general, contributing quite a bit of city revenue, which of course increases their power in city affairs and, consequently, the tendency of the city to accommodate them.

As you can see, ARPA dollars are slowing down, and some recurring costs are going to have to switch to the general fund. That's not really going to work long term, and some other revenue source is going to become necessary. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_…

Irvin Corley, Jr, Executive Policy Manager, Legislative Policy Division of City Council, notes the increase in unemployment this past year is due to more people entering the labor market, as opposed to people losing their jobs, which Ehrlich also noted

Corley also noted that while property tax revenue has risen over 7%, property tax delinquency has ALSO risen. It appears to me this reflects the ongoing problem of inequality in the city. People are buying property at the same time other people can't pay their property taxes.

Laura Godspeed, Auditor General, praised the presentations and reflected on how pleased she is at how the process has "evolved" since she began in 2008. She did note that she finds the predictions made more optimistic than may be appropriate.

She further notes that the city is spending the ARPA money very slowly, and says there even more available that the city has not officially appropriated yet.

She was surprised to see ARPA funds being included in revenues today, as they are by definition non-recurring. She expressed concern at the drift towards viewing ARPA funds as regular city money.

They're going to move on to public comment, but can't figure out the phone, so people who tried to call will have to put questions in the chat, Twitch stream-style.

In the mean time, no audio for the first in-person commenter.

The answer, from Ehrlich, was just a clarification of income levels for the several categories mentioned in his presentation

Question from chat: how does the lower income level compare with the federal poverty rate?

Ehrlich: the two numbers are apples and oranges. Our "lower income" is appreciably above the federal poverty rate, and takes into account COL and family size. It's more meant to be a very general analysis of economic class in the city.

Excuse me, that should be Laura Goodspeed, not Godspeed, up there

They decided to answer the rest of the chat questions individually, approved the reports unanimously, and ended the meeting at 2:58pm

Well folks, this closes my coverage of the Detroit Revenue Estimating Conference meeting for September 9. Learn more about our coverage of local meetings at documenters.org

If you believe anything in the coverage today is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@outliermedia.org with "Correction Request" in the subject line