Ah, yes, Lansing's "3rd Rail." It's dirtiest little secret, its (not so well) "hidden" tax. No easy answers.

First of all, BWL posted in this letter (which I NEVER rec'd, BTW) a "budget," except it only lists EXPENDITURES. Budgets should list REVENUE as well as expenditures, and then the resulting predicted profit (or loss). That said. . .

The profit was purposely left off this letter's "budget," specifically BECAUSE BWL's "profit" comprises 17% ($26,237,421) of the City of Lansing's Revenue stream. Only Property & Income Taxes bring in more revenue than BWL. BWL profit is diverted to hide what would otherwise be a huge ($26,237,421) budget deficit. This amount is roughly equivalent to the cost of the ENTIRE Police Department!

The STATE limits what Lansing can charge for Corporate, Income, & Sales tax; SO the only ways for Lansing to increase Revenue is increasing: Property taxes, Fees, &/or BWL rates. This makes your BWL payment a form of taxation. Until the State unties our hands, there is little we can do, because:

The bad news is that if BWL is reformed and rates decreased to the point where BWL becomes the NON-PROFIT publicly owned utility I believe it was intended to be (remember I've only lived in Lansing for 5 years), the City would have to layoff half it's staff, or declare bankruptcy, leading to State control of Lansing & the 2.4% income tax rate Detroit residents now pay. We can debate whether that would be a good or bad thing, but I digress.

I also question where the CSO money has gone. I was shocked, upon my first exploration of "The Shuffle," to see, directly across the Grand River, what I assume to be huge street drainage pipes dumping street rainfall, plus oil, antifreeze, & likely, dog droppings, into the river. Bad optics. Bad policy. If those are not in use, they should be plugged. The EPA, had it not been dismantled by the current fed Admin, would be breathing down our necks now.

BWL executive salaries are, on average, 4x that of city officials. I'm not familiar w/ the going rate for like executives nationwide, but they SEEM excessive. Also, Lansing's population is decreasing, or static, and yet BWL's fixed expenses keep steadily rising, which normally only occurs when new capacity is introduced, or the organization grossly underestimated future needed capital expenditures.

The whole organization needs a thorough, independent audit, and a thorough investigation into whether such salaries are warranted. Hopefully, this could lead to a cessation of the endless parade of BWL bill increases, but major change isn't on the horizon until Lansing has more autonomy over it's own governance.

This unprecedented method of taxation could be eliminated IF, and ONLY IF, STATE tax policy is changed to allow municipalities to determine their own corporate, income & sales tax policies; as do most states. We should not be dependent on legislators from other parts of the state to determine Lansing's path to improvement. Unfortunately, as mayor, I could not change STATE policy, but I could use the position of being Michigan's 3rd largest city's mayor as a "bully pulpit" to push ALL Michiganders to vote for legislators willing to reform Michigan's tax policies.

No easy answers.