Property Values To Drop 12 Percent in Shores

The Grosse Pointe Shores finance committee chairman told his fellow council members Tuesday that the property values for the city will drop another 12 percent this year, according to figures released by Wayne and Macomb counties.

The plummet in property values, which have declined for the last few years, means the 2012-2013 fiscal year budget is likely to have a $500,000 funding gap, chairman Bruce Bisballe said.

The finance committee has been meeting but there has not been much strategizing on how to tackle the budget before knowing the change in property values.

Bisballe said the committee will meet tonight at 7 p.m.

Among his plans for the meeting, he wants to assess the top 20 vendors/service providers utilized by the Shores and determine if there are any opportutnities to save money by bidding out the service to other companies or receiving the service in another format.

He said generally the top 20 vendors should represent about 80 percent of the budget, so if there are savings to be had this is the area significant savings would likely surface.

After assessing what types of services are within the top 20, Bisballe said for those that it would be appropriate, he will ask city manager Brian Vick to send out requests for bids. Some of the services include engineering, legal representation and other similar kinds of services.

Bisballe said this is just one preliminary step in addressing the budget before the passage deadline is upon the council and there is a struggle to find savings that could be achieved.

While the request for bids does not require council approval, if the finance committee were to discover a large savings and want to switch vendors for any of its services, that decision would ultimately be up to the council.

Last year, council grappled with more than a $350,000 shortfall, which they eventually closed with a 1.25 millage increase. Though most taxpayers were paying less than the year before because of the lower property values, there was controversy about the measure.