Uh, someone didn’t get the memo that the answer to everything is to cut corporate taxes

Flint Emergency Manager Ed Kurtz is leading a push to increase city income taxes by 0.5% for residents and 0.25% for non-residents. That’s a 50% increase. Why? Turns out Flint is out of money and needs revenue. It’s almost as if Flint’s problems weren’t caused by waste, fraud, and mismanagement after all.

More after the jump.

Detroit Rock Bottom Photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog Yesterday, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr gave a frank State of the City report that showed that the city is “clearly insolvent”. Not a big surprise to anyone except a handful of folks who seem to think it’s all a big mistake and the city is just fine financially. […]

Yet somehow they’ll blame the teachers…

The Michigan township of Buena Vista, in the news recently for its racist Township Clerk, is back in the news today with the announcement that the school district has closed its doors over a month before the end of the school year. Why? Turns out the school district had taken $580,000 in state funding for a program for incarcerated youths that it no longer runs. With an outstanding bill of $400,000, the state cut off its funding and it now has no money.

The district’s 27 teachers had agreed to work without pay for a week while the district sorted out its mess but, this morning, the schools were closed.

Details after the jump.

The truth emerges…

Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts announced this morning that he’s stepping down as EM when his contract expires later this month. He said, in his mind, the crisis is over and the DPS is on its way to being financially stable.

Roberts said something else, however, that shocked those who were present. He told them that his instructions when he took the job were to “blow up the district and dismantle it”.

Click through for more.

Hallelujah!

The small town of Ecorse, Michigan, under control of an Emergency Financial Manager or Emergency Manager since 2009, has been deemed to have emerged from its emergency and will now be indefinitely under the control of a Transition Advisory Board (TAB).

Joyce Parker, the Emergency Manager for both Ecorse and Allen Park will be on the TAB. Gov. Snyder provided a list of her accomplishments (after the jump.)

Dude, slow down

It looks like expansion of the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) in Michigan is going to be put on hold, at least until this summer. Why? Because Republican Senator and Education Committee Chair Phil Pavlov is unhappy. Why is Phil Pavlov unhappy? Because the EAA legislation passed by the House only allows for FIFTY SCHOOLS to be taken over by the state and put into their “school district for wayward schools”. Apparently Sen. Pavlov wants to be able to take over even MORE schools than that.

Could it be because the EAA has become such a cash cow? I’ll explore this question after the jump.

The State of Michigan is in a weird state

A collection of stories about Detroit, Flint and the jaw-dropping stuff happening in these two cities.

Click through for the Full Monty.

Another failure of Emergency Management

The southeastern city of Hamtramck (spelled correctly, pronounced “Ham-tram-ick”) is facing the prospect of its city being taken over by an Emergency Manager as the state has ordered a financial review team to assess its financial situation.

Hamtramck is a small city of just over 22,000. Its population is just over half (53.6%) white and has an unusually high population of Asians (21.5%.)

This would be Round Two for Hamtramck. In 2000, Governor John Engler installed an Emergency Financial Manager, a familiar player Louis Schimmel. Six years later, books balanced and financial crisis “solved”, Schimmel left and, in 2007, the city was once again back in charge of its government.

However, that didn’t last long. In 2010, facing continuing budget issues, Hamtramck asked the state to be allowed to declare bankruptcy. They were denied.

Click through for more.

It’s hard to keep up…

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a summary of the latest news about Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law and the new surrounding our illustrious saviors dictators Emergency Managers so I thought it would be a good time to so. On a personal note, I was interviewed by freelance journalist Chris Lewis this past week for a piece he’s doing for The Atlantic so it’s clear to me that this story continues to receive national attention.

It’s all there after the jump. And there is a LOT there after the jump.

Sometimes not “everything” should be on the table

In a recent interview prior to assuming his new position as the Emergency Manager of Detroit, Kevyn Orr said that “everything is on the table” with regard to solving Detroit’s financial problem. Not only that, he specifically said that “everything is on the table” with regard to the future of the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department. This could include, according to Orr, sale or privatization of the department.

This would be a HUGE mistake. Click through for why sale or privatization of the department should be taken OFF the table before any further discussions take place.

Roy Roberts may be a convincing liar but he is still a liar

Michigan’s experiment with Emergency Managers has begun to catch national attention, thanks largely to the efforts of Rachel Maddow and her staff. One of the things that has become quite clear from the things I have written about here and the terrific reporting by The Rachel Maddow Show is that, despite the fact that our state is relying on budget-cutting Emergency Managers to solve problems that are complex and multi-faceted, they have yet to show that they actually WORK. Simply stated, outside of one tiny village, there has yet to be a city or school district that has emerged out from under and Emergency Financial Manager or an Emergency Manager and remained financially stable.

The Detroit Public Schools has been under the control of an Emergency Manager or Emergency Financial Manager for many years. The first Emergency Financial Manager, Robert Bobb, actually left the school district in a bigger financial hole than when he arrived. He was replaced by Governor Snyder by an auto industry marketing and sales guy, Roy Roberts.

Roberts is very proud of his work and went on national television to tell the world that the Detroit Public Schools are back and, not only are they back, they are kicking some serious academic ass, surpassing the state average MEAP scores in a majority of categories.

As it turns out, it was a complete lie. Click through for details.