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Detroit City Council meets for a regular meeting Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Credit: Christine Ferretti / BridgeDetroit
Detroit is at a crossroads. It is one that will determine whether the city honors its commitment to transparency and accountability or quietly retreats from it.
In 2012, Detroit voters made a clear and deliberate choice. By overwhelmingly approving the Revised City Charter, they did more than create oversight bodies like the Office of Inspector General (OIG). They required that those agencies be properly funded through a proportional funding ordinance within 90 days.
This was not a suggestion. It was a mandate rooted in a simple idea: oversight must be protected to be effective. The Charter itself leaves no room for ambiguity. It explicitly recognizes that oversight agencies play a critical role in ensuring ethical and efficient government, and it requires a funding mechanism to ensure they are not weakened by shifting political priorities.
Even more telling, the Charter uniquely sets these agencies apart for funding protection, underscoring that this obligation is both mandatory and distinct. And yet, for 13 years, the city failed to comply. It wasn’t until 2024 that City Council finally passed the required ordinance, followed by a funding formula in 2025. Even then, oversight agencies agreed to a reasonable compromise: a three-year phased approach to reach full funding, easing the budgetary impact while still honoring the law.
Kamau C. Marable
Now, just one year into that agreement, the City has already walked it back. This is not a minor adjustment. It is a fundamental reversal. The current approach, reducing funding below what the ordinance requires, doesn’t just undermine prior commitments; it conflicts with the law itself.
The ordinance includes an alternative minimum funding formula, but that provision was never intended as a default. It only applies under narrow circumstances, specifically when the city determines that full funding is outweighed by a true critical need. That threshold has not been met. Oversight agencies have not yet reached their target equitable funding (TEF), meaning the alternative formula should not even be in play.
More importantly, shifting funds to other priorities, however important they may be, does not meet the standard of a “critical need” as contemplated by the ordinance. To treat it as such is to rewrite the law after the fact.
Let’s be clear about what this means. This is not about budget constraints. It is about preferences and priorities. And it is certainly not about financial distress. As evidenced by the number of new initiatives, investments, and programs currently being launched and funded, Detroit is not in a fiscal crisis, nor is it heading toward bankruptcy.
Those decisions reflect capacity and flexibility in the budget. Against that backdrop, the decision to scale back oversight funding is not driven by necessity, but by choice.
Funding oversight does not require cutting essential city services. It requires honoring a legal obligation that exists precisely because oversight is too often deprioritized when budgets tighten. The Charter anticipated this dynamic and deliberately guarded against it. And the stakes are real. Strong oversight is not theoretical; it produces measurable results.
Investigations by the OIG have uncovered unsafe construction practices, leading to the removal of hazardous materials from Detroit neighborhoods. In one case alone, the city recovered more than $4.7 million. Time and again, oversight efforts have exposed fraud, abuse, waste, and corruption, protecting both public safety and taxpayer dollars.
Oversight cannot be treated like any other budget line item. The Charter explicitly distinguishes oversight agencies by affording them unique funding protections, underscoring the mandatory and distinct nature of this obligation. For that reason, it is flawed to compare oversight agencies to other city departments during the budget process.
Proportional funding exists as a critical safeguard. Yet since its creation, the OIG has never been fully funded. Born on the eve of Detroit’s bankruptcy, the office has operated under persistent constraints, limiting its ability to meet growing demands. The proportional funding model was designed to fix that and to ensure independence, stability, and the capacity to do the job voters demanded. That work is now at risk of being undone.
City Council has already done the hard part. It passed the ordinance. It adopted the funding resolution. It agreed to a phased path forward. To abandon that path now, after just one year, is more than a policy shift. It is a breach of trust.
Detroit’s residents spoke clearly in 2012. They demanded strong, independent oversight as a cornerstone of good governance. The question now is whether the city will honor that mandate or blatantly set it aside. At a time when public trust in government is fragile, the answer should not be a difficult one.
Kamau C. Marable is the Inspector General of the City of Detroit. He was promoted to that role in 2024 after serving as the City’s Deputy Inspector General since the office’s inception in 2012.
Op-Ed: Detroit failing test of accountability
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Detroit is at a crossroads. It is one that will determine whether the city honors its commitment to transparency and accountability or quietly retreats from it.
In 2012, Detroit voters made a clear and deliberate choice. By overwhelmingly approving the Revised City Charter, they did more than create oversight bodies like the Office of Inspector General (OIG). They required that those agencies be properly funded through a proportional funding ordinance within 90 days.
This was not a suggestion. It was a mandate rooted in a simple idea: oversight must be protected to be effective. The Charter itself leaves no room for ambiguity. It explicitly recognizes that oversight agencies play a critical role in ensuring ethical and efficient government, and it requires a funding mechanism to ensure they are not weakened by shifting political priorities.
Even more telling, the Charter uniquely sets these agencies apart for funding protection, underscoring that this obligation is both mandatory and distinct. And yet, for 13 years, the city failed to comply. It wasn’t until 2024 that City Council finally passed the required ordinance, followed by a funding formula in 2025. Even then, oversight agencies agreed to a reasonable compromise: a three-year phased approach to reach full funding, easing the budgetary impact while still honoring the law.
Now, just one year into that agreement, the City has already walked it back. This is not a minor adjustment. It is a fundamental reversal. The current approach, reducing funding below what the ordinance requires, doesn’t just undermine prior commitments; it conflicts with the law itself.
The ordinance includes an alternative minimum funding formula, but that provision was never intended as a default. It only applies under narrow circumstances, specifically when the city determines that full funding is outweighed by a true critical need. That threshold has not been met. Oversight agencies have not yet reached their target equitable funding (TEF), meaning the alternative formula should not even be in play.
More importantly, shifting funds to other priorities, however important they may be, does not meet the standard of a “critical need” as contemplated by the ordinance. To treat it as such is to rewrite the law after the fact.
Let’s be clear about what this means. This is not about budget constraints. It is about preferences and priorities. And it is certainly not about financial distress. As evidenced by the number of new initiatives, investments, and programs currently being launched and funded, Detroit is not in a fiscal crisis, nor is it heading toward bankruptcy.
Those decisions reflect capacity and flexibility in the budget. Against that backdrop, the decision to scale back oversight funding is not driven by necessity, but by choice.
Funding oversight does not require cutting essential city services. It requires honoring a legal obligation that exists precisely because oversight is too often deprioritized when budgets tighten. The Charter anticipated this dynamic and deliberately guarded against it. And the stakes are real. Strong oversight is not theoretical; it produces measurable results.
Investigations by the OIG have uncovered unsafe construction practices, leading to the removal of hazardous materials from Detroit neighborhoods. In one case alone, the city recovered more than $4.7 million. Time and again, oversight efforts have exposed fraud, abuse, waste, and corruption, protecting both public safety and taxpayer dollars.
Oversight cannot be treated like any other budget line item. The Charter explicitly distinguishes oversight agencies by affording them unique funding protections, underscoring the mandatory and distinct nature of this obligation. For that reason, it is flawed to compare oversight agencies to other city departments during the budget process.
Proportional funding exists as a critical safeguard. Yet since its creation, the OIG has never been fully funded. Born on the eve of Detroit’s bankruptcy, the office has operated under persistent constraints, limiting its ability to meet growing demands. The proportional funding model was designed to fix that and to ensure independence, stability, and the capacity to do the job voters demanded. That work is now at risk of being undone.
City Council has already done the hard part. It passed the ordinance. It adopted the funding resolution. It agreed to a phased path forward. To abandon that path now, after just one year, is more than a policy shift. It is a breach of trust.
Detroit’s residents spoke clearly in 2012. They demanded strong, independent oversight as a cornerstone of good governance. The question now is whether the city will honor that mandate or blatantly set it aside. At a time when public trust in government is fragile, the answer should not be a difficult one.
Kamau C. Marable is the Inspector General of the City of Detroit. He was promoted to that role in 2024 after serving as the City’s Deputy Inspector General since the office’s inception in 2012.
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