By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

The Lake Orion Downtown Development Authority Board of Directors held their annual preliminary budget review during their regular meeting on March 8.

During the review, the board discussed debt services, proposed projects and reviewed a proposal for increasing the fees in the current village contract.

According to DDA Executive Director Molly LaLone, the estimated proposed budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year includes $890,000 in property taxes including the police millage, $25,000 in OctoberFest revenue and $5,000 in gift certificate sales (not including the Consumers Energy Sale) for an estimated total revenue of $920,000.

On March 1, the DDA held a special meeting to review the contracted services that they receive from the village. The services included administration services and insurance, public works services and police services.

During this meeting, Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett, who sits on the DDA board, spoke at length about his concerns with the village attempting, in the future, to charge the DDA more for the services stating that many of the services the village provides the DDA would need to be provided whether Lake Orion had a DDA or not, citing snow removal and police services in the downtown as two examples.

LaLone, who has been vocal in the past about her belief that the DDA should be paying the village more for administrative services, recommended an increase in the amount the DDA is paying for all three services. According to DDA documents, the overall proposed increase on administrative services, public works and police services is $24,800. This increase would bring the total amount paid for these services from $201,200 to $226,000.

“The proposed changes are pretty heavily in the crowd control and event support (police) and snow removal (DPW). I think that this is probably one of those things that we’ll probably be discussing more, but this is how I’m suggesting we look at a change to our contract we have with the village,” LaLone said.

“We have a social district that we haven’t had in the past. We’re having people, weekly, come out and be out on our sidewalks, enjoying our downtown and that is definitely a change from the past,” she said.

Barnett again spoke out against increasing fees for services provided to the DDA from the village, reiterating that the Lake Orion DDA pays on the high end for some services that the village would be provided even if Lake Orion did not have a DDA.

The board also reviewed the DDA’s priority projects heading into the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The projects include an interfund transfer ($200,000 that would go toward a parking deck); DDA capital outlay wayfinding/lighting ($75,000 toward the DTE lighting program); DDA capital outlay parking ($25,000 toward electrical vehicle charging stations); and capital outlay – dumpsters ($60,000 toward both a dumpster and grease enclosure).

The total budgeted investment in priority projects is $360,000.

Because most of these investments will not cover the total expected cost of these items, specifically the parking deck, it is anticipated that the DDA will go out for a bond in order to fund that project.

The DDA board spent significant time discussing the figures provided and ultimately were satisfied with them.

Though there were no specific changes proposed, the DDA board will likely have further discussion on increasing service fees during their workshop meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on March 22 at Lake Orion Village Hall.