Can Detroit turn this time? To reform, Bing's team must buck history
With the city facing a financial crisis, Detroit's mayor assembled a volunteer team of business and community leaders, led by a retired Ford Motor Co. executive, to help chart a course through murky fiscal waters.
Mass layoffs were looming, revenue was shrinking, and the city's budget deficit had exceeded $200 million.
After months of study, the crisis team advised the mayor to re-engineer city government: privatize or regionalize some services, cut wages for unionized workers, find new revenue streams and adjust the city's debt load. The end result would be a leaner organization more capable of weathering an economic downturn.
That mayor was Coleman Young. The year was 1981.
Last week, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing's crisis turnaround team presented its findings.
Co-chaired by former Deputy Mayor Freman Hendrix, attorney and business owner Denise Ilitch and retired Ford executive Joe Walsh, the team's 50-plus members produced a 145-page report with more than 150 recommendations, such as cutting payroll costs, outsourcing as needed, consolidating city services where appropriate, bulking up revenue and trimming expenditures.
Few of the recommendations made by Young's Budget Stabilization Committee, aside from a city income tax, were enacted. The Budget Stabilization Committee was followed a decade later by the 21st Century Committee, a group of business leaders — including then-steel executive Dave Bing — with a similar charge, similar results and similar inaction.
Read entire article at Crain's Detroit Business
Mass layoffs were looming, revenue was shrinking, and the city's budget deficit had exceeded $200 million.
After months of study, the crisis team advised the mayor to re-engineer city government: privatize or regionalize some services, cut wages for unionized workers, find new revenue streams and adjust the city's debt load. The end result would be a leaner organization more capable of weathering an economic downturn.
That mayor was Coleman Young. The year was 1981.
Last week, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing's crisis turnaround team presented its findings.
Co-chaired by former Deputy Mayor Freman Hendrix, attorney and business owner Denise Ilitch and retired Ford executive Joe Walsh, the team's 50-plus members produced a 145-page report with more than 150 recommendations, such as cutting payroll costs, outsourcing as needed, consolidating city services where appropriate, bulking up revenue and trimming expenditures.
Few of the recommendations made by Young's Budget Stabilization Committee, aside from a city income tax, were enacted. The Budget Stabilization Committee was followed a decade later by the 21st Century Committee, a group of business leaders — including then-steel executive Dave Bing — with a similar charge, similar results and similar inaction.