I was speechless when I read this proposal, and it wasn’t just because of all the typos. You’d think if the city was going to stick it to us so badly it could have at least proofread the proposal it spent months discussing in secret planning meetings from which the public was consistently and deliberately excluded.
The resolution and ballot language is linked here. To call it an abomination, a trojan horse, a poison pill, or just a duplicitous piece of crap does NOT put too fine a point on it. Our clueless city government has literally lost it’s effing mind.
Short summary:
The city wants a five-year “public safety millage” of 7 additional mills (which is more than the current 6.16 mills the city actually pays for police and fire/emergency medical services [EMS]). The city wants to keep its ability to tax us at the current 11.4107 mill general operating tax level, but it is temporarily (sort of) promising to reduce the current 11.4107 mill general operating tax levy by almost dollar-for-dollar to 5.4107 mills if the 7-mill public safety millage is approved. So, the city says, if you approve the new 7-mill public safety millage, we’ll reduce the current general operating millage by almost the same amount. Well, the general operating millage reduction would not be exactly the same as the new 7-mill public safety millage. It would be only a 6-mill reduction (from 11.4107 to 5.4107 mills). A 7-mill reduction in the 11.4107 general operating millage to 4.4107 would be a dollar-for-dollar reduction completely offsetting the new public safety millage.
According to the city, if you approve the 7-mill public safety millage, you’ll only see a net increase in your total property taxes of 1 mill – for right now. However, the proposed resolution for city council to vote on includes enough wiggle words so it’s clear the city isn’t even promising not to raise total property taxes by more than 1 mill effective July 1, 2027, after it holds its 2027-2028 budget hearing next May or June.
To understand this, you need to understand the difference between an authorized millage and an actual levy. The authorized millage is the amount that the city can legally charge. Generally, it can only be changed by a vote of the residents. Although the authorized millage is the maximum the city can charge, it doesn’t have to charge that full amount. Each year the city decides how much of the authorized amount it will “levy” by setting the tax rate for the year (as long as it is not more than the voter-approved maximum). That can change from year to year. If this year’s rate is lower than the maximum, next year’s rate can be increased as long as it doesn’t exceed the maximum. And this doesn’t require a vote of the residents. The city council can keep raising the annual levy all the way up to the authorized maximum all on its own.
This is what approval of the proposal would do. It would add another 7 mills to the authorized maximum and leave the current 11.4107 general operating millage the same — for a total of 18.4107 mills. Even if the city decides to levy less than the authorized 11.4107 general operating limit, nothing prevents it from increasing the levy in future years, all the way up to the maximum of 11.4107 mills. So the city could raise your taxes to 18.4107 mills effective next July 1. And it doesn’t matter what the city promises in an unenforceable council resolution. (Note that the actual proposed ballot language says nothing about reducing the general operating millage.) Even if there were a clear promise here (there isn’t because it’s all contingent on a future budget hearing and council vote months away), the city showed us its promises don’t mean anything when it broke the library millage promise and raised our taxes by .691 mills so it could give giant raises to city employees, something I’ve discussed in the section below titled: “The city council will break any promise it finds inconvenient.” I’ve highlighted what I think are the important parts of the resolution in this copy.
So, it’s no big deal, right? Money is fungible, they’re only asking for a 1 mill tax increase, and public safety is important.
Wrong!
It’s a huge deal. If you are silly enough to vote yes on this proposal, any future city council can gradually (or suddenly) increase your general property taxes whenever it wants by a majority council vote, taking us back up to whatever current value of 11.4107 mills is. 11.4107 mills plus 7 mills = 18.4107 mills, a 62% increase in your Clarkston property tax.
Got that? You will not get a chance to vote on these future tax increases. Your vote in November authorizes the city to tax you at a total millage rate of 18.4107 mills whenever it wants to, which is the value of the general property millage you’re paying now plus the 7-mill new “public safety millage.”
You have only one chance to vote no on this, and that vote will happen on November 3, 2026.
Longer explanation:
I discussed the background behind the proposal here and provided more detail regarding how despicably and underhanded Clarkston city officials behaved in getting to this point (urged on by the city attorney whose salary you pay) and why no one should vote for this. It’s worth a read.
Topics in this section:
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- Clarkston taxes and Michigan constitutional protections
- Calculating how much Clarkston property tax you pay now
- Clarkston government has always been fiscally irresponsible
- Fire/EMS and horrid police service
- This whole “public safety millage” thing is really about increasing general fund “fun” money that’s available for the city to waste and spend
- Don’t fall for this “public safety millage” scam – it’s nothing more than a clever trick to give the city the ability raise your taxes up to 62% more!
- The city council will break any promise it finds inconvenient
- Conclusion
Clarkston taxes and Michigan constitutional protections
Section 8.2 of the voter-approved Clarkston charter limits the city to a maximum 15-mill general operating tax rate. Clarkston voters authorized the city to charge us that maximum 15 mills a long time ago. Even though you pay an outrageous amount of other taxes to the state, county, schools, zoo, library, art institute, and all the other itemized crap that lives on your summer and winter tax bills, the focus here is on the 15 mills you pay directly to fund the running of Clarkston government. (The other taxes are pass through taxes, meaning that Clarkston collects the money but “passes it through” to the other entities.)
There are two voter-approved amendments to the Michigan constitution that are important to this discussion. The first is the Headlee amendment and the second is what is commonly referred to as “Proposal A” (or sometimes “Prop A”). These two constitutional amendments are designed to protect property owners from significant inflationary fluctuations while still providing funding to local governments for their operations. Without these protections, people could be taxed out of their homes during times of high inflation as local governments happily collect higher taxes while not caring one bit about any individual hardship.
The Headlee amendment is designed to give the city the 15 mills it bargained for at the dollar value that existed at the time voters approved the 15 mills – plus a fixed allowance for inflation every year. Anything that exceeds that amount is rolled back (which is why it’s referred to as a “Headlee rollback”). This means the city is not allowed to collect a windfall in taxes when home prices skyrocket during times of high inflation, but it does give the city the benefit of the bargain that it struck with the voters, allowing it to receive the 15-mill value equivalent in today’s dollars (11.4107 mills).
The 11.4107 general millage rate changes every year as overall taxable values change in the city, which is what the city means in the “public safety millage” resolution when it says the 11.4107 mills will be “further reduced in 2027.” Cry us a river – that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen under Headlee, and no doubt the value of your own bank account has changed in the same way. That’s why $1.00 in groceries doesn’t buy as much as it did in 1990. We all have to live within our means and economic realities whether we’re an individual trying to support a family or a local government.
If it wanted to, the Clarkston city council could have proposed a straight yes/no millage vote on a “Headlee override” in November. If we approved that, then our taxes would go up to 15 mills at today’s dollar value – which would be a 3.5893 mill increase. But that would have been an honest and forthright thing to do.
There are a lot of adjectives to describe Clarkston city government, but honest and forthright are not among them. So of course, your city council rejected this option in one if their many secret meetings with the city attorney in favor of the current proposal that is intended to trick voters into authorizing a 62% tax increase with no future say in when the entire amount will be levied, which could occur any time after the “public safety millage” is approved.
The second Michigan constitutional amendment that protects you is Proposal A. Proposal A changed the way property taxes are computed. It used to be that your property tax was based on the state equalized value of the property, which is supposed to be half of the market value. Proposal A set up a new concept: taxable value. Property taxes are now computed on taxable value. Proposal A limits the amount the taxable value of your home can increase each year to the rate of inflation or 5%, whichever is less. If you look at your tax bill, you will see two boxes – the taxable value and the state equalized value. When you bought your home, these two boxes probably had the same dollar value inside because the state equalized value roughly represents half the market value of your home if you were to sell it in a regular sale. If you’ve owned your home for a while, you’ve likely seen both the state equalized value and the taxable value climb as your home’s market value naturally increased. But fortunately, our taxable values cannot grow faster than 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less, because of the protection provided by Proposal A. The difference between the state equalized value and the taxable value boxes can be significant if you’ve owned your home for a long time. Were you to sell your home, the taxable value would be “uncapped,” and your buyer’s taxable value would likely be the same as the state equalized value in the beginning of their home ownership. That’s something to keep in mind when talking about higher taxes, because your buyer will factor the overall amount of taxes they will have to pay in deciding whether to place an offer on your home. Another reason to vote no on this outrageous proposal!
Calculating how much Clarkston property tax you pay now
Property taxes are spoken of in “mills.” A mill is the equivalent of $1 in tax for every $1,000 in taxable value. If you’re multiplying, a mill is expressed as .001 (1/1000). If you want to calculate how much you pay in property taxes to Clarkston, you would look at the dollar value in the taxable value box on your tax bill and multiply it by .0114107 (11.4107 mills x .001). In my last post, I used the example of a $400,000 home with a taxable value of $200,000. That reflects a newly purchased home where the state equalized and taxable values boxes have the same or similar number because of the uncapping, but I chose that amount because I suspect many homeowners in Clarkston have a taxable value of around $200,000. The city prefers to use what it refers to as an average taxable home value of $160,000 so it can present you with a lower tax cost number to make its proposal seem less expensive than actually is. The best way to understand what all this will mean for you personally is to use the taxable value number for your own home and ignore what the city says because its not going to tell you anything that would cause you to vote against such a huge tax increase.
Clarkston government has always been fiscally irresponsible
From the time we bought our home in 2002, we’ve noticed that Clarkston government has spent tax dollars like a drunken sailor without regard for future planning. And speaking of future planning, most cities want new development and more incoming taxes – but not in Clarkston! Our unqualified Historic District Commission volunteers see themselves as the last bastion to “defend” the city from any new construction in the few limited open spaces we have that could accommodate it. Recently, one of the commissioners seemed to suggest the city should consider asking for their permission and input on repaving a broken-down side street because these unqualified volunteers are apparently road construction experts now (and no, I’m not kidding).
The city council “borrowed” hundreds of thousands of dollars that residents paid into water and sewer repair funds that were earmarked for future repairs. It “borrowed” this money to pay for a huge city hall rebuild that provided the city manager with his very own private office. Repairs would have cost less than $50,000, but do you think the city council cared? No, it was just taxpayer funds. The city council ignored a resident petition drive and a city-wide lawn sign campaign against this rebuild. Want to know why you keep seeing endless sewer surcharges on your bills today? It’s because we actually need that money for sewer repair now and it’s not there. Want to know how the city council will treat you if this proposal passes and you don’t want them to raise your taxes an additional 6 mills at their discretion? Go back to the city hall rebuild discussions and see how little your city council cares about what you think of the way they want to spend your money.
The city broke a forever promise to roll back our taxes by .691 mills every year if we voted to approve the establishment of the Clarkston Independence District Library. That promise was made to avoid double taxing us for the library, but it only lasted just over ten years – until the city manager wanted to give huge salary and benefit increases to three office employees, including himself. Two of those salary increases were significantly above the recommendation of a salary consultant we were forced to pay for at the city manager’s request (when he thought a salary survey would support the big raises for these two). And then the city manager threatened to resign if the city council didn’t give him the $13,000/year raise he demanded last year – and city council rewarded his unprofessional, toddler-like behavior not with a termination notice but with the $13,000/year raise he demanded for his four-day work week (that also includes 15 vacation days, 14 holidays, and 6 sick days). And one of those two employees walked off her job giving only two business days’ notice last December, came back in January and begged for her job back (and got it!), and now moans and groans that we don’t pay her enough. No good deed goes unpunished, eh? You’re not only stuck with higher taxes, but you’re also stuck with city employee ingratitude. (More on that broken library millage promise later because it’s relevant to any discussion about the worthlessness of city council promises.)
Incredibly, the city council has only recently begun to insist that the city manager at least try to competitively bid contracts, something that’s required by the charter. He’d just rather not bother with that. He’s also never explored contracting for police and fire/EMS anywhere else at a reduced rate – far easier to convince the city council to ask for a “public safety millage.” After all, we wouldn’t want to make him work too hard for that $13,000 raise!
Would you be surprised to know there is never any repercussion from city council when city employees waste taxpayer dollars? Your city employees overpaid police and fire/EMS invoices over a 14-year period to the tune of $171,799.59, and 8 of those years were under the current city manager’s watch. The city council never held anyone accountable. They just decided to trust the city manager’s assurance that he’d fixed the issue rather than requiring he submit a proposed policy for their review that would ensure that it actually won’t happen again.
When establishing a budget, the city doesn’t zero out everything and question whether all individual expenditures should stay or go. Instead, the city manager and finance committee adopt a non-thinking approach and assume everything in the budget is important and should be increased by the amount of expected inflation. The city manager is on the finance committee, but its recommendations usually involve how to get more revenue, not how to budget responsibly. And every year, the city council rubber-stamps the city manager’s budget requests.
The examples are endless but demonstrate a pattern of a fiscally irresponsible city run for the last 11 years by a city manager who thinks money grows on trees and who gets 95% of his financial requests rubber-stamped by a mostly uninvolved and unquestioning city council. The council members changed over the years, but the outrageous spending has not.
We pay the maximum general operating millage tax and receive virtually no city services. Most of the basic things a normal city provides are contracted out. We contract with Oakland County for information technology (for a payment platform to pay those taxes and fees!). We contract with Independence Township for police, fire/EMS, building inspection, and permitting services. We lease Deer Lake Beach to Independence Township for $1/year, and Independence Township taxpayers pay a small fortune to manage, maintain, and improve it. Independence Township was doing our assessing, but we contract with someone else for that now. We also have a contract city planner and contract city engineer. In short, we’re a rent-a-city with, as my mother used to say, a champagne appetite on a beer budget because all of this excessive waste and spending is supported with taxes paid by a tiny population of around 850 people who live in approximately 400 homes along with the taxes paid by a handful of businesses on Main Street.
They don’t need more money – they need to stop wasting the money they have.
Fire/EMS and horrid police service
Independence Township has its own fire department/EMS, and we contract with them for these services. Independence Township contracts with the Oakland County Sheriff for police services, and we in turn contract with Independence Township to get our own police service from the Oakland County Sheriff. The city manager has never explored whether there are other municipalities who can provide police, fire, and/or EMS services at a better price and performance. The only reason I can think of is that he just doesn’t feel like it, but he’s been the driving force behind complaining that the cost of police and fire/EMS is too high. (But he didn’t start complaining about revenue issues until after he secured his $13,000/year raise – interesting, huh?)
Our police service through the Oakland County Sheriff is abysmal and both the council and public often complain about the lack of traffic enforcement. Our sheriff liaison told us the sheriff doesn’t intend to do anything about it, and the record supports that – despite constant complaints of speeding and even drag racing, the sheriff only wrote 24 traffic tickets for the first six months of 2026. The sheriff’s liaison also told us they’re not going to enforce the city ordinance that requires bike owners walk their bikes on the downtown sidewalks, so I guess we’ll continue on the way we are until some unsupervised kid hits someone or ends up getting hit by a car while trying to avoid hitting someone.
In short, the city has done nothing about police and fire/EMS costs in the past, and it’s only now that it’s affecting the city manager’s ability to begin new pet projects that it’s become an issue that prompted the request for a “public safety millage.”
There will be no change in the public service level we receive – we’ll just be taxed more for it.
This whole “public safety millage” thing is really about increasing general fund “fun” money that’s available for the city to waste and spend
Right now, we pay for police and fire/EMS services through the general fund. General fund money is fungible, and when the city manager asks the city council to approve his pet projects and desires, he tells them which general fund account is going to be used to pay for whatever it is, and the city council has almost always acquiesced to every one of these requests. The current costs for police and fire/EMS have increased, and the city doesn’t want to use general funds to pay police and fire/EMS fees anymore. By shifting the cost to taxpayers in the form of yet another millage – a “public safety” millage – the city can free up the money it would have paid from the general fund for police and fire/EMS and spend it on whatever city officials want while taxpayers pay two millages to Clarkston government – a general property tax millage and a public safety millage.
Once these public safety millages start, it’s difficult to stop them. The city is proposing a 7-mill increase in property taxes for 5 years. But 5 years from now, the city will insist that if you don’t renew the public safety millage, there will simply be no money to pay for police and fire/EMS – just like all the other municipalities did in the recent August election. So, the best taxpayer approach to public safety millages is to vote “no” the first time they’re proposed and force them to live within their means right now – just as you do.
If the city were honest and forthright, it would simply have asked us for a Headlee override, explain in detail why it needed us to pay more, and let the voters determine if it’s justified. But it didn’t do that. Instead, it decided to float a “public safety millage” crap sandwich this November to rake in more tax dollars by using a subterfuge, i.e., tricking people into thinking they’ll get more or better public safety by paying more and getting them to agree to up to a 62% tax increase.
You’ve probably heard a lot about “public safety millages” during the last week and the taxpayer revolt against them. I saw dozens of angry social media comments expressing contempt for local governments that refuse to live within their means and that treat taxpayers like endless piggy banks. (No one ever said our city officials were good at reading the room or looking in the mirror, eh?)
The dollar value of the millage required to pay the full current cost of police and fire/EMS is $408,776. That works out to 6.16 mills, not the 7 mills your city council is asking you to pay for the next 5 years. In exchange, the city has promised – in an unenforceable resolution – to reduce the current 11.4107 general millage by 6 mills so there is a net increase in your taxes of just 1 mill. According to the city, that amounts to only $160 more for a home with an average taxable value of $160,000. In my example of a home with a $200,000 taxable value, it would be $200 more.
Such a deal!
But if this was only about a 1 mill tax increase, the city could have gotten there by asking for a Headlee override of 1 mill and wouldn’t also be asking you to approve a “public safety millage” of 7 mills to pay for fire/EMS and really bad police services.
Be warned – this is not about a 1 mill tax increase.
Don’t fall for this “public safety millage” scam – it’s nothing more than a clever trick to give the city the ability raise your taxes up to 62% more!
As I’ve already pointed out, the city isn’t proposing to reduce its ability to tax you 11.4107 mills in general property tax while asking you for an additional 7 mills in “public safety millage” tax. What it wants from you in November is approval of something I’ll call a tax cookie jar that holds a total of 18.4107 mills in taxes. Right now, the city wants to take 12.4107 mills out of the jar – 7 mills in “public safety millage” and 5.4107 mills in general fund millage – for a net increase of 1 mill more than you’re paying today. For now, the city is planning to leave an additional 6 mills in the tax cookie jar to take out and use at the city council’s discretion. You can scream all you want later on, but if you vote yes on this proposal, there is absolutely nothing you can do about a future 6 mill tax increase which could come all at once or in dribs and drabs as the city council sees fit. That’s right – if you vote yes on this proposal, you are giving people who’ve never met an expenditure they don’t like the ability to raise your taxes up to 62% more than you’re paying right now!
Let’s do some math.
The city is telling you this whole thing is no big deal and trust us – it will only cost the “average” homeowner $160 more per year. But even the 1 mill increase is a big maybe because the resolution uses a lot of wiggle lawyer language. And that no big deal 1 mill claim ignores everything the “average” homeowner is already paying not just to Clarkston but to many other taxing authorities and for all the other millages that when combined add up to a crushing amount of property tax.
In my example, a home with a $200,000 taxable value currently pays $2,282.14 for the 11.4107 millage (200,000 x .0114107). This represents only what that person pays Clarkston government but does not include the endless list of taxes we pay that are passed through to the state, county, library, zoo, etc. A 1 mill increase raises that annual amount to $2,482.14, so that homeowner must pay over $200 per month to Clarkston just to live in their own house. (I say that because if the homeowner didn’t pay their property tax, the city would ask the county to toss them out on the street and sell their home at a tax foreclosure sale to get their tax money.) Using the city’s example of a $160,000 taxable value in its proposed resolution, that 1 mill tax increase will cause that person’s taxes to rise from $1,825.71 to $1,985.71, so it will cost them about $165 per month to live in their Clarkston home.
If we authorize the city to raise our taxes by 6 mills whenever city council chooses up to 18.4107 mills (using .0184107 as the multiplier), the taxes will rise to $3,682.14 for a home with a $200,000 taxable value and $2,945.71 for a home with a $160,000 taxable value. That’s around $1200 and $960, more, respectively – per year – to pay Clarkston government for the privilege of living in your own home. You can calculate this for yourself – and you should. Take your taxable value and multiply it by .0124107 to determine what you’ll pay with a 1 mill tax increase and then multiply it by .0184107 to see what you’ll pay with an additional 6 mill tax increase.
You might be thinking that I’m misreading what this is about because the city couldn’t possibly be asking for the right to raise your taxes by 6 mills in the future without you having the opportunity to vote on it, right?
I can assure you that I’m not misreading anything.
Here’s what city attorney Gerry Fisher said when asked if this “public safety millage” would be “revenue neutral” (meaning the general fund millage amount of 11.4107 would be reduced dollar-for-dollar by the amount of the 7-mill public safety millage):
“Basically what happens then is the authorization for the operational millage stays up. And so, if necessary, as a result of things that occur during the year, you need more money, you can authorize the levy of more of that because you have that authorization already from the charter.”
Got it? The city will retain the ability to tax us at the 15-mill equivalent of what is currently 11.4107 after the Headlee rollback – that’s what he means by “the operational millage stays up.” Then, if the city council wants more money at any time during the year, the city council alone can “authorize a levy of more” millage up to that 6 mills by taking it from the tax cookie jar. And that will occur not with a vote of the people, but by city council fiat.
The language of the resolution says the same thing as the city attorney:
“The operational millage authorized by the electors, now in the amount of 11.4107 mills, will continue to be in effect.”
If it wasn’t creating a new tax cookie jar to hold up to 18.4107 in millage tax, the city would tell you that the “operational millage” (i.e., the general operating millage) is being permanently reduced to 5.4107 mills. It’s not.
Here’s more from the resolution:
“So, while the current amount of millage which could be levied as an actual tax based on the authorization of 11.4107 mills, if the electors of the City approve a separate millage to fund police, fire, and emergency response services, the City will not need to burden City taxpayers with a levy if the full operational millage. Rather, subject to the public hearing held in 2027 as part of the budget approval process, the City would reduce the amount of the levy under the operational millage so that the expected net taxation on City property would be as follows:
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- The newly proposed separate millage to fund police, fire and emergency response services for each of the next 5 years would be 7.0 mills, beginning July 1, 2027; and
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- The number of mills actually levied for taxation on July 1, 2027 under on the operational millage authorization would be reduced to 5.4107 mills.”
Aww. They’re worried about “burdening us.” 😂😂😂
Take a look at that language again. They’ve told us they are keeping the millage rate they can charge us at 11.4107 (or whatever the amount is after the Headlee adjustment in future years). They’re proposing to charge us 7 mills for public safety and 5.4107 for general millage (“just” a 1 mill net increase) – but even that’s not written in stone because the resolution also states:
“[t]he precise amount of the reduction [is] to be determined following the public hearing held on the budget.”
The resolution is quite specific that the only thing you’re voting on is a 7 mill “public safety millage” tax increase and the other 6 mills in the tax millage cookie jar are in play:
“Accordingly, the City Council now desires to place before the electors a proposal for the approval of a new millage, authorizing the levy of 7.0 mills, with a duration of 5 years, to continue funding police, fire, and emergency response services in the City.”
All you have is a city council promise in a resolution that your July 1, 2027 tax increase will be limited to only 1 mill – and they aren’t even locking themselves into that! It will only be a net “expected” 1 mill increase if they feel like doing that because the net 1 mill increase is “subject to” the 2027 budget hearings and “[t]he precise amount of the reduction [is] to be determined following the public hearing held on the budget.”
They’re not even hiding the fact that you get absolutely nothing from this deal. If they were honest, they would propose a charter amendment that permanently reduced your general operating fund millage to 5.4107. They’re not doing that. If they cared about a partnership with you, they wouldn’t have made all their preparations for the “public safety millage” in secret meetings, saving the big reveal for the latest possible moment to submit a ballot proposal for November. But they’re neither honest nor desirous of a partnership with you.
So, your ability to have enough money to feed your family and not be taxed out of your home might just hinge on the word of the city council to keep a promise made in a resolution that you will suffer only a 1 mill tax increase next year and you’ll have to trust them not to raise your taxes by 6 mills to do stupid things like give more giant raises in salaries and benefits to city employees (as they did the last time they increased your taxes).
You’re just a walking wallet to your city government.
The city council will break any promise it finds inconvenient
What do we know about city promises made in a resolution?
They aren’t worth the powder to blow them to Hades and they proved that to us last year.
I mentioned the library millage promise and it’s important to understand what happened with that as it relates to this proposal, which also includes a promise in a resolution. You need to understand Clarkston government’s history to know how it will act in the future.
In August 2014, we were asked to vote to establish an independent district library that had the ability to ask for its own millage in the future. At the time of this proposal, Independence Township residents were paying a .691 mill levy on their property to fund the library. Clarkston residents were funding the library in the same amount under an agreement with Independence Township, but the .691 mill equivalent was paid out of the city’s general fund, just like police and fire/EMS are paid now.
If the vote passed, then the library would receive its funding from a separate library millage. To keep them from being double taxed, Independence Township residents would no longer be charged a separate .691 millage tax for the library paid to Independence Township, because they would be paying for the library millage directly to the new library district. Seems fair enough.
If the vote passed, Clarkston taxpayers would be handled slightly differently but reach the same result. Since Clarkston residents would be paying to fund the library in a separate library millage tax, the city council passed a resolution that would reduce (roll back) the Clarkston general fund millage by .691 mills (it was less in the beginning because there was a partial fiscal year). This was so that the city would not get a .691 mill general fund windfall to use elsewhere that it otherwise would have sent to support the library.
There was no guarantee that the library proposal would pass without the promise. It had failed two years earlier.
I’ve attached a copy of the city council’s April 14, 2014, resolution here. There was nothing at all ambiguous about the language in the council’s promise in the resolution, which stated: “In future years, the City will reduce its general operating millage levy by 0.691 mills from the level that the City would otherwise have imposed.” In other words, the city council promised that if I voted yes, my taxes would be reduced by .691 mills each year – for all future years, i.e., forever.
The vote to establish the library district passed, the plan was implemented, and the library millage is now one of the many taxes that shows up on your tax bill. I relied on the city’s promise to not raise the overall amount that I paid for taxes when I voted for the library district. I’m sure other Clarkston voters did as well.
Over the years, the city manager casually mentioned we had that .691 mills just sitting there unused because of the library millage rollback promise. But it wasn’t sitting there unused – residents were simply keeping that money in their own pockets and not sending it to the city to waste. What was “unused” was the city’s ability to increase our general millage taxes by that .691 mills. Since the library millage promise was made in a city council resolution, it could be undone with another city council resolution – and the only thing standing in the way of that happening was the trust the residents had that city council would keep its word. Just like the 6 mills in the current “public safety millage” proposal, that .691 mills was sitting there in a different tax millage cookie jar.
The city just can’t resist cookies. And it doesn’t care about keeping your trust.
The city council’s library millage promise lasted only until the 2025-2026 budget year. The city manager wanted to hire our clerk at a higher rate than the market allowed for a city our size, and he wanted to give her health insurance (something we never offered before because of the expense), because he claimed we “had to have her” or Clarkston could apparently never have an election again. 🙄 The city manager also wanted to overpay the treasurer with a higher salary than he should be paid for a city our size, and he wanted to give himself a $13,000 annual increase as well. He recommended modest increases for the other three employees. And, despite initially promising that he would never propose increasing taxes to pay for salary increases, the city manager later said he wanted to use the ability to increase our taxes by the .691 library millage rollback to pay for the increased salaries and benefits.
And so the city manager began to practice some revisionist history to get what he wanted. Here’s what he said last year at the May 27, 2025, city council meeting:
“So, the proposal here is to remove the millage [reduction]. Just to refresh your memory, in August 2014, ten years ago, over ten years ago, there was an agreement by city council to take the sting out of a new library millage of 1.25, to take that sting away. They said, we will reduce the city’s mills by 0.691. And so that was put in place. It did say in future years this would continue, but there’s nothing that says that has to be, by law, that has to be. That couldn’t be removed. So, that’s what’s being proposed here. Over the last ten years, by having that 0.691 millage reduction in place, we have saved the voters or the residents $339,000. In 2025 alone, that 0.691 equates to almost $44,000. So, that $44 goes a long way to our shortfall. Would we save on paper clips and other things? Yes. But this $44,000 is largely what’s going to make these five challenge areas doable, physically doable. So, the average increase, so this effectively is an increase that homeowners will see in their tax bill. The average increase that we’ve gotten a consensus from Oakland County is the average increase will be just under $100, $99.99. And lastly, to reiterate, this elimination does not in any way, shape, or form impact the library’s budget. They have a millage of their own now. They’re not relying on us. Removing this makes no difference to them. It’s a little bit of an increase for homeowners, but it doesn’t change the library’s services in any way, shape, or form.”
Got that? The .691 library millage wasn’t so we would avoid double taxation if we voted yes on the new district library – according to the city manager, it was to “take that sting away.” Going on, the city manager said: “It did say in future years this would continue, but there’s nothing that says that has to be, by law, that has to be. That couldn’t be removed.” That’s right – the only thing keeping the promise in place was the integrity of the city council. The “five challenges” the city manager spoke of consisted of four mostly low-budget impact items – the fifth “challenge” was the only one he cared about because giving giant increases in salary and benefits to city employees is apparently some sort of a challenge. The city manager acknowledged that over a ten-year period, taxpayers were able to keep approximately $339,000 of their own money because they weren’t double-taxed and breaking the promise wouldn’t affect the library. (Of course it wouldn’t – we agreed to allow the library to charge its own millage.) And then there’s that gosh, golly, gee it doesn’t cost much B.S. again – with the city manager claiming the average increase will only be just under $100.
Sound familiar? Today, the city is saying the “public safety millage” will only cost $160 for the “average” home with $160,000 in taxable value. $100 more, $160 more . . . at some point, does it ever amount to real money to these people?
Councilmember Gary Casey actually had the cojones to say the .691 mill rollback was a “gift,” and it was time to wrest that gift from the taxpayers.
Every one of your city council members voted to empty that .691 tax millage cookie jar, break the library millage promise, and hand that money over to city employees. Most of the money from that .691 tax increase went to the city manager, city treasurer, and our ungrateful city clerk – because it’s better to give them that $339,000 over the next ten years than for you to spend it on your own family.
Can you see how much contempt your city government has for you and how it views things when you get to keep more of your own money? It’s a gift! As far as the city manager was concerned, the crystal-clear promise to roll back our taxes by .691 mills per year – forever – wasn’t really that; it was just to take the sting out of supporting a new district library (something we could have done for ourselves by voting down the library millage proposal for the second time). And the most important thing the city manager said that’s germane to the “public safety millage” was this: “It did say in future years this would continue, but there’s nothing that says that has to be, by law, that has to be.” So, if taxpayers don’t require a charter change, any city council promise can be set aside because “the law” doesn’t require it.
So, that 1 mill effective increase in your taxes? No law requires that so don’t count on it. And if this passes and city council has a brand-new tax millage cookie jar with 6 mills in it to spend as they wish, whenever they wish, you aren’t going to get to vote on the amount or the timing because “the law” doesn’t require it. You can scream all you want to during the public comments at city council meetings, but they will care as much about what you have to say about a 6 mill tax increase as they did when the public screamed about not wanting their water and sewer funds to be “borrowed” to pay for a refurbished city hall with a private office for the city manager.
Conclusion
I think this is probably the biggest middle finger the city government has ever given to residents in all the time I’ve lived in Clarkston. This is not about public safety because they don’t care about public safety. Your city government has done nothing about our abysmal police services while the money to pay for it comes out of the general fund – and the only reason they care now is because the cost for it affects the amount of money available for the city manager to spend on more big employee salary and benefit increases and his many, many pet projects.
The claim that the city will maybe, possibly, sort of reduce the general fund millage so the net effect is “only” a 1 mill increase for the 2027-2028 budget year is just a trick because it’s not permanent. Voting yes on this proposal gives the city the ability to raise your taxes by 62% from where it is now because a simple majority council vote can raise the general operating fund millage back to the equivalent of 11.4107 while the city continues to collect the 7-mills in public safety millage for a grand total of 18.4107 mills.
Remember, that 6-mill equivalent that currently sits in your pocket is merely a “gift” to you until the city is ready to seize it. After all, there’s “no law” that says they can’t, right? To the contrary – if you vote yes on this moronic “public safety millage,” the law is on the city council’s side to take it whenever it wants.
PLEASE REJECT A 62% TAX INCREASE BY VOTING “NO” ON THE SCAMMY PUBLIC SAFETY MILLAGE!
This proposal will be discussed at Monday’s city council meeting. You can attend in person or online. You can also contact your city officials by email and let them know what you think of this outrageous tax grab as well as all the continued secrecy about it (and everything else).
Here are their email addresses:
Mayor:
Sue Wylie – WylieS@VillageofClarkston.org
Mayor Pro Tem:
Laura Rodgers – RodgersL@VillageofClarkston.org
Council Members:
Gary Casey – CaseyG@VillageofClarkston.org
Amanda Forte – ForteA@VillageofClarkston.org
Erica Jones – Jonese@VillageofClarkston.org
Ted Quisenberry – QuisenberryT@VillageofClarkston.org
Al Avery – AveryA@VillageofClarkston.org
City attorney:
Gerry Fisher – fisherg@cooley.edu