Posted on 04/23/2012 8:42:41 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
City of Detroit administrators are suggesting 2,566 layoffs across all departments, according to a new budget presented to City Council today.
"Those are people," City Council President Charles Pugh said, frowning at the figures.
Mayor Dave Bing has already called for 1,000 layoffs this year. The additional layoffs are both grant-funded and non-grant-funded positions.
During a council session last week, Deputy Mayor Kirk Lewis warned that there would be significant cuts to drive down the city's $265 million deficit. Lewis was not present at today's session, and Bing is still out sick; city chief operating officer Chris Brown presented the modified budget.
Brown said 800 of the 1,000 earlier layoffs have been targeted.
During last week's budget presentation, Lewis and Brown said there would be no layoffs among police and fire workers. Today's proposal banks on a $20 million federal grant to keep at least 100 public safety workers in place.
The budget also calls for the privatization of the Department of Transportation and an independent authority to manage the lighting department while the city maintains ownership. Both those changes would go into effect on July 1 if the budget is approved, Brown said.
There are still plans for a 10-percent wage reduction for all city employees -- including the City Council -- and consolidations of several departments, including health and wellness, human services, City Airport and workforce development.
The budget also calls for slashes in expenditures for key city operations. The city's law department would get a 55-percent reduction, for example, while the city's recreation department would get a 50-percent cut.
"There's more than one way of achieving fiscal stability, and we need to challenge our own way of thinking," said councilwoman JoAnn Watson, who expressed concerns over the number of cuts.
The city is still eying a goal of creating a $96 million surplus, as outlined during the first budget presentation. $250 million would be cut from the city's expenditures this year, and $75 million would be paid toward the city's deficit.
The council will meet at a later date to continue deliberating the proposed budget.
I think these cuts are great, though they have the effect of destroying one of the last groups of viable consumers in the area. I wish they would cut more quickly here in NJ; Governor Christie is doing a good job, but we still have too many of these costly parasites sucking us dry. They have become our upper middle class here since the private sector decided to invest in Mumbai and Manila instead.
Attempting to give a damn...
Anyone remember the Planet/City of Trantor in Issac Asimov’s Foundation books? By the time the First Empire fell, they were pulling down the great gold buildings and selling the metal, and dragging the land beneath out into the sunshine for raising food. The mighty have fallen.
It’s DEMOville...what do they expect?
In the most liberal city in America, where Public-Sector Union bus drivers make more than 747 pilots, while getting six-figure retirements, can somebody explain to me why I should give a damn?
Wasn’t the Casino supposed to be the end of all of Detroit’s money problems?
WOW ... I didn't think there was even 2,566 people living there.
Government employees around the nation need a good slashing at every level. Cut the compensation and benefits of those who remain, and completely cut the pensions as well—let them save and invest like their neighbors.
10/2011
As thousands of Detroiters wait for buses this morning, as many as 100 bus drivers for the Detroit Department of Transportation are being paid an average of $12 an hour to do nothing.
Hundreds of buses sit idle awaiting repair, so their drivers also sit idle, watching TV, playing cards or chatting with one another until their shifts end or a bus becomes available.
With about half of the fleet broken down, the city is about 100 buses short of what is needed to keep the routes on time, Mayor Dave Bing said.
Some riders who wait up to three hours for a bus trip were outraged to learn drivers are not driving, but still being paid. Drivers as a whole have accumulated more than $2 million in overtime in the last 3 1/2 months. “It’s beyond words,” Linda Cooper, a secretary who works downtown, said as she waited for a bus Friday. “I’m sickened, absolutely sickened.”
http://www.freep.com/article/20111024/NEWS01/110240433/Detroit-bus-drivers-paid-do-nothing
UNION DEFENDS DETROIT BUS DRIVER FOR LAP DANCE BEHIND THE WHEEL
Detroit City bus driver gets an extended lap dance while driving his bus with passengers on it! They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in this case the video says it all. The bus driver gets suspended after a passenger captures this Kodak moment and forwards it to the department of transportation.
http://theobserver.hubpages.com/hub/UNION-DEFENDS-DETROIT-BUS-DRIVER-FOR-LAP-DANCE-BEHIND-THE-WHEEL
These are 2,566 “ghost” workers on the Detroit city payroll? Will they still vote Democrat? Of course. Even the dead vote Donkey in Detroit.
I hate to suggest it....but Detroit over the past two decades has become like some third-world Banana Republic city. You can’t take any member of the city council serious. There is no funding for real infrastructure or improvements in the city. If I were a kid who happened to make it through the school system and graduate....the best thing to do is join the military and leave Detroit.
The only person who could straighten out Detroit is Snake Pliskin.
I am so thankful to be in Tennessee, where the dems actually want to waste our surplus this year. Thank God we hold the majority here. Democrats are some of the most narrow-minded of all the critters. All they want is more power over the purse strings. They don’t care whether the programs work or not.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.