Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr will not eliminate the salaries of Mayor Dave Bing or City Council members.
According to a news release from the EM: Under Public Act 436, salaries and benefits are eliminated for all elected officials of a municipality in which a financial emergency manager has been appointed unless they're restored by order of the emergency manager. Section 13 of the act gives the manger authority to set, amend or eliminate any salary, wages, other compensation or benefits of the mayor and council during the time that the city is under an emergency financial manager.
Given the $300+ million accumulated deficit and $14 billion in long-term debt, you wouldn't think the million bucks or so spent on elected officials would be a big deal to anyone except said elected officials and maybe Kwame Kenyatta's (very talented) haberdasher, but you would be wrong.
This is a very important issue to members of the local media. Yesterday morning, Orr's first day on the job, he was asked about council and mayoral salaries several times by multiple reporters during a Q&A session lasting less than 10 minutes.
Bing said he wasn't concerned: "If it's cut, it's cut," he said.
But Orr decided that trifling symbolic cuts to political salaries would cause more trouble than it would be worth.
“Detroiters need their elected representatives on the job and working collaboratively toward the solutions that will solve our immediate financial crisis and position the city to grow and thrive,” Orr said.
So rest easy, fellow reporters. Council salaries remain the same. Now maybe we move onto unfunded pension obligations and general obligation bond debt.
Kevyn Orr, 1; Detroit Groupthink, 0.
