Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter presented his balanced, transparent, and fiscally-responsible budget recommendation for fiscal years 2024-2026 to the Board of Commissioners last Thursday evening in the Board of Commissioner’s Auditorium.
“The budget I’m recommending to you today is lean, efficient, and disciplined,” Coulter said. “It also helps the county deliver services that are effective, equitable, and cost-efficient and preserves all new initiatives that are taking hold and moving Oakland County forward.”
Coulter also highlighted the county’s economic resilience moving forward from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that more than 40 companies, mostly in the advanced manufacturing sector, have expanded or located in Oakland County in the past year.
“The economy’s bouncing back after the major disruption of the COVID pandemic. Unemployment rates continue to decline and total jobs in the county are expected to get to pre-pandemic levels by 2025,” he said.
Coulter’s proposed budget includes for the first time a section on countywide public transportation that will continue to expand transit services throughout the county. He recounted the ongoing growth of public transportation throughout the county.
“With the quick action by the board of Commissioners, contracts with NOTA, WOTA and OPC were approved earlier this year and all three have begun to expand the services they’re providing to a ridership that has increased by 10 to 15 percent as they have increased their fleets and hours of operations,” Coulter said. “SMART is about to install signs for 500 new bus stops for their fixed route expansions, which could begin as soon as September. And a contract with People’s Express, which will expand and improve transportation service in Southwest Oakland County, is near completion.”
NOTA is the North Oakland Transportation Authority, WOTA is the Western Oakland Transportation Authority, and OPC is the Older Persons’ Commission serving the greater Rochester area.
The budget recommendation includes a three percent general salary increase for employees with the goal of attracting and retaining a talented and diverse workforce.
The Coulter Administration is working in collaboration with the Board of Commissioners to allocate the remaining $80 million of American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding. Coulter’s recommended budget, however, represents the beginning of a transition away from the federal COVID relief funding that has assisted the county, its residents, businesses, and communities to recover from the pandemic, and charts a successful path forward. The end of his proposed three-year budget – 2026 – corresponds with the same deadline by which Oakland County’s ARP dollars must be fully expended.
“After three years of critical funding from the federal government through the CARES and American Rescue Plan programs, created to recover from the COVID pandemic, we are coming to the end of those dollars,” Coulter said. “Together, we made a commitment to strategically invest the federal money into transformational projects that addressed critical issues we already knew needed attention. And with bipartisan collaboration, we’ve done some really amazing things with that money that have made such a difference in the lives of our residents.“
Coulter’s budget recommendation is structurally balanced with no use of the budget surplus for ongoing operations and maintains a fund balance level of over 40 percent of the county’s general fund, both of which are key practices for maintaining the county’s AAA bond rating. His proposed general fund budgets for fiscal years 2024-2026 are $534.2 million, $547.0, and $560.5 million, respectively. The total recommended budgets for all funds for fiscal years 2024-2026 are $1.066 billion, $1.080 billion, and $1.101 billion, respectively.
To view Coulter’s balanced budget, go to oakgov.com/fiscal and click on the “FY 2024-FY 2026 County Executive Recommended Budget” link.
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