Posted on 06/10/2016 7:37:44 AM PDT by Lorianne
Coming out of bankruptcy in late 2014, Detroit had a new lease on life - it had shed some $7 billion in debt and restructured another $3 billion, and could finally move forward, or so it was thought.
Detroit has hit two significant potholes on its recent road to recovery, one being the fact that it was "discovered" that there was an enormous pension shortfall, and now we learn that the Michigan legislature has just narrowly approved a $617 million bailout of Detroit's Public Schools.
The financially and academically ailing 46,000-student Detroit Public Schools has been managed by the state for seven years, during which it has continued to face plummeting enrollment, deficits and, more recently, teacher sick-out protests.
Under the bills, the district would be split in two and control would be returned to an elected school board. A commission of state appointees would oversee the district's finances, similarly to how it now reviews the city's budgeting as part of a $195 million state rescue in 2014.
The new debt-free district would educate students. The old district would stay intact for tax-collection purposes to retire $617 million in debt over 8½ years, including $150 million in transition costs to launch the new Detroit Community School
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
If the old district collects all the taxes to pay off debt, how will the new district finance itself?
Don’t ask too many questions.
It’s not supposed to make sense.
I suspect the headline is misleading. It probably should read that the Detroit teacher unions received the money, with the majority of it residing at the top, and the dregs, after falling through the union/school filter, might reach the classroom.
This is starting to sound like what happened in Memphis.
Courts order desegregation and busing in Memphis City Schools in the 1960’s.
Whites begin fleeing the City of Memphis. By the 90’s the schools are 90% minority.
The loss of a tax base, combined with typical Democrat shenanegans, puts the school district in bankruptcy.
It reaches a point where it has no money to operate, and the schools shut down.
Not willing to let “the chillin’” go without public schooling, another court orders the surrounding Shelby County district to absorb Memphis.
Whites react by breaking away from the Shelby County district and forming their own smaller districts.
Eventually the Shelby County Schools will follow the exact outline of the former Memphis City Schools and head right back into bankruptcy again.
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