Ludington City Hall by the Math

[XLFD]

When the city-hall-friendly (citizen-unfriendly) local paper wrote up an article on the 2026 Budget, they used a quote by City Manager Kaitlyn Aldrich from the meeting where they passed the budget:  

“One of the biggest differences in the budget this year versus previous years is that just in general our costs have gone up.  Our revenues aren’t keeping up with the rate of inflation, and that is certainly hurting our budget.”

Really!?  Earlier in the article, it was noted that:  "According to the city’s 2026 budget document, the General Fund includes $8.39 million in total revenues next year, which is $375,200 more than the 2025 adopted budget."  

Using their own numbers and doing the math, revenues are predicted to rise 4.7% over 2025 levels, while November 2025 US Inflation Rates showed an inflation rate of 2.7% over the last twelve months, nearly half of the revenue growth in the city-- mostly due to the illegal raising of the tax rates every July by the city council.  This is just another reason why we call this terrible city manager Prevaricatin' Kaitlyn, she just can't give out factual information if it destroys her narrative.

Raises were given out to city employees.  One can't easily find the data and Prevaricatin' Kaitlyn didn't think that high employee pay raises merited a mention in her budget message.  We noted that the clerk's raise amounted to 4% and the treasurer's raise amounted to 6%, and that we were told at the December 22nd meeting that the proposed raise for the city manager was 4%, where she indicated that it was the same as for other employees (union and nonunion).  

The agony that city hall employees display when telling us that the city will have to dig into their reserves over the next three years is charming enough, but they could easily pull in even more surpluses if they would make their own sacrifices by having a raise that better reflects the inflation rate, rather than their insanely high revenue growth rate which comes partly by the violent intentional act of raising tax rates on the people of Ludington every July by holding Truth in Taxation hearings to overcome Headlee protections against greedy local governments.

Hiding tax hikes aren't the only things city hall does, they also claim their own special holidays each year to work even less while getting more money.  On December 23rd, they announced for the first time on their Facebook page that they would be taking the day after Christmas off, this was confirmed when this reporter went to city hall this last Friday:

On the list of state holidays for 2025, December 26 is not a holiday.  This was not changed when President Trump made it a federal holiday for this year by executive order, because there was no similar action taken in Michigan.  This was strictly a city manager created holiday, as will the day after New Year's Day be in 2026, once they announce it.  City hall also closes on every Good Friday too.  Thus, in both 2025 and 2026 city hall employees received an extra two half-days off for holidays that are not recognized by the state.

Likewise, back in April 2025, a decision was made by Prevaricatin' Kaitlyn to cut city hall hours of operation from 45 to 42 hours in order to better serve residents and that was put into effect with the city council's blessing on April 28th.  This was actually a 7% cut in city hall services/hours adopted in the middle of a budget cycle but salaried employees were still given the same wages they had when they worked 7% more hours.  Quite a bonus for 2/3 of 2025. 

Therefore, the 2026 Budget should reflect that salaried city hall staff should have been given a reduction of their 2025 rates by 7% due to this change, before giving them any pay raise this coming year.  Even if we keep the 4% figure for a raise, this would amount to a pay cut of over 3%.  This would pay them for the hours they worked with the more than fair raises they received in both years.

Instead, the treasurer position will get a 6% raise, others will get 4% raises, the fringe benefit rates they also receive will remain over 70% of their salary, and our inept and dishonest city manager has stated the need to create two new full-time positions without offering any new services-- just reductions of services to "better serve the public".  This is the dictionary definition of dysfunction.