Tagged: detroit budget

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced 1000 layoffs Friday.

Detroit faces a $45 million budget gap this fiscal year—and is poised to run out of cash by April.

Bing says the layoffs represent important savings—but they won’t close Detroit’s budget gap. He says city unions need to take a 10% pay cut.

“We have to talk to the union. If we don’t get concessions from the unions, none of the plans will work,” Bing said bluntly.

Bing gave the unions until Monday to agree, but talks between the two sides have gone nowhere.

Bing also insists he’s determined to go after tens of millions of dollars in revenue sharing the state owes Detroit from more than a decade ago.

“The state owes the city of Detroit $220 million,” Bing said. “I’m not afraid to ask for it, I’ve asked for it, I’m going after it.”

Republican leaders in Lansing have balked at Bing’s request.

Bing also says he won't submit the city's finances for a state review--something that Governor Snyder has said he "expected" Bing would do in light of Detroit's precarious situation.

Critics and allies alike say Detroit Mayor Dave Bing's proposal to get the state to pay the city more than $200 million faces an uphill battle.

It’s one of the ideas the Mayor has outlined to keep the city from going broke.

In 1998, Detroit lowered its city income tax in exchange for guaranteed levels of state revenue sharing. But city officials say the state reneged, and shorted Detroit about $220 million it was promised.

Bing says that would be enough to erase the city’s structural deficit, and the $45-million shortfall the city expects this year.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing says the city is on the verge of a financial calamity. But he insists that with tough choices all around, it can still avoid a state takeover.

Bing’s televised speech on city finances Wednesday night had a blunt message: “Simply put, our city is in a financial crisis and city government is broken.”

To avoid running out of money by spring, Bing says the city needs to do a whole range of things almost at once.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing will meet with City Council members behind closed doors Wednesday.

Among other things, they’ll discuss a confidential analysis detailing the city’s finances.

The analysis itself hints at cash flow problems for the city. Detroit is trying to work its way out from under a $155 million deficit.

The Detroit City Council appears to be standing firm in an ongoing battle with Mayor Dave Bing over how much to cut from the city’s budget.

The Council wants to cut more from the budget than Bing to chip away at the city’s roughly $155 million accumulated deficit.