At the April 10, 2023 meeting the Village Manager provided his proposed 2023-2024 budget to the Village of Lake Orion Council. It was not provided to the public, so I requested it.
As provided, it does not comply with village charter requirement 8.2 as the document is incomplete, containing NO information about next year’s DDA revenue and expenses even though it was stated at the meeting that the information was included.
What did I find out? Based on the available information, the total property tax revenue for the Village next year will be $1,282,734. According to comments made by the DDA Executive Director, about $459,000 of that will transfer to the DDA, or about 36% of our local taxes. In addition, the DDA gets additional funds from taxes voted to go somewhere else, like transportation, OCC, parks, etc.
There has never been a public vote to give any taxpayer funds to the DDA, but next year they may have $903,236 of our money to do with as they wish, and so far, not shown anywhere in the budget.
Per the DDA Director, they may have a debt payment of about $414,486 next year if the $5 million bond is approved for the DDA purchase of the Lumberyard property. We don’t know what won’t be done due to this long-term debt and the DDA having little money left for the services they provided in the past.
As stated at the meeting, they don’t know what the lumberyard project may cost or if there will be any return on the taxpayer investment. The bond will cost the taxpayers almost $7 million with fees and interest. The cost to do anything on the lumberyard property could be even more.
Like the Village legal expenses, they don’t want us to know, but we will be paying for it.
Cory Johnston
Lake Orion