Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said Thursday that the city is no longer in danger of running out of cash. Bing presented a financial-restructuring plan to the City Council Thursday highlighting cost savings from 1,000 imminent layoffs, overdue payments from the Detroit Public Schools district and a corporate-tax increase.
The plan calls for $102 million in savings through June and $258 million through 2013. The city currently faces a general deficit of $200 million.
"Do we have financial stress? Damn right we do. We've had it since Day 1," Bing said.
But if you ask the City Council president and other community leaders, they tell a totally different story. City Council President Gary Brown said that the mayor's office has overestimated before the amount of money the city would have coming in. "It [revenue] just didn't show up as projected," Brown said. "And we don't have a system in place in city government to react."
Brown has many reservations, as do city labor leaders who feel that the cuts aren't being spread fairly. "A large percentage of the city's budget is tied up in labor contracts in terms of hourly wages, health care and retirement issues," said Mike Boudreau, director of Bloomfield Hills-based O'Keefe and Associates, financial-turnaround consultants.
"There's no way around that, but I think it's unfair to put it totally on [the unions]. I think the pain needs to be spread around."
Read more at ABC News.