Hamtramck's Budget Nightmare: Michigan Town Left With Nothing Else To Cut

[unhappycamper]

Hamtramck's Budget Nightmare: Michigan Town Left With Nothing Else To Cut
William Alden
[e-mail] | HuffPost Reporting
First Posted: 12-15-10 04:40 PM | Updated: 12-15-10 11:13 PM

Bill Cooper, the city manager of Hamtramck, Mich., surveyed the possible solutions to his looming budgetary catastrophe, all of them various flavors of bad.

He could lay off firefighters or police officers, whose services comprise nearly two-thirds of the city's $18 million annual expenditures. Their unions, however, had already absorbed substantial hits and would surely fight back. Public safety, too, would suffer -- no minor consideration in this suburban community bordering Detroit.

As he confronted the ugly prospect of municipal bankruptcy, Cooper focused on the few programs he considered discretionary, beginning an awkward, even bewildering process of nickel-and-diming his city back toward solvency.

He laid off the city's crossing guards, all five of them, logging a grand total of $8,000 in annual savings.

He laid off two parking attendants, leaving just one to look after scofflaw parkers in this city of 20,000 people scattered over about two square miles. Here was another $60,000 in annual savings. The auto-industry town, beset by red ink, now beckoned as a haven for double-parkers.



unhappycamper comment: Meanwhile, Lockheed keeps building (very) expensive jets, mercenary companies still have shitloads of contracts, Northrop Grumman is building our newest $40 billion dollar aircraft carrier, and we are spending 58% (a trillion dollars a year) of all non-discretionary funding to maintain our empire.

[xchrom]

1. something has to give -- there are states and cities out there

ready to go down a black hole.

[lunatica]

5. Something is giving. Our infrastructure and the people and funds that maintain it

[Democracyinkind]

2. Your threads are always very relevant and interesting. Thanks for that.

As to the content. This does seem quite apocalyptic. The crisis doesn't get any realer than this, at least as long personal perspectives are not included. I imagine there are similar stories from all around the country.

[unhappycamper]

4. I see them every day.

Massachusetts is cutting next year's budget by $1.5 billion dollars. Fixing that is easy:

Don't build six of those F-35s.
Don't build an LDP and you'll still have $180 million dollars left over.
Don't build the USS Gerald R Ford and you'll still have 38.5 billion dollars left over.
Get out of the sand box (including mercenaries and contractors) and you'll 'find' another $150 billion dollars.

[mstinamotorcity]

3. What is it you want to really know about Hamtramck

What you read or knowledge by someone who lives in a five minute drive. The first correction, Hamtramck doesn't border Detroit. Hamtramck sits inside Detroit. Just as Highland Park. Hamtramck has two Manufacturing companies that we share with them in revenues. So what is it you want to know about the city with five police cars??? Who will write you a ticket for going 22 miles in a 25mph street. Which 25mph or lower are the driving requirement in Hamtramck.

[bullimiami]

6. And the rich get richer. Maybe this experiment has truly failed.

[enough]

7. Calling Hamtramk a "suburban community" really does not describe it. It is indistinguishable

from Detroit.

[Tace]

10. I Was Thinking The Same Thing

Also, it is an enclave deep within Detroit, surrounded on all sides by Detroit, except a small border with another small enclave, Highland Park.

[Recursion]

8. Wow, they can't even afford vowels...

It's kind of a civic death-spiral: property values go down, so tax receipts go down, so services get cut, so property values go down more...

[Selatius]

9. The gloomy answer is to let the infrastructure decay, like after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Let the roads, bridges, and rail lines fall into disrepair. Concentrate just on bare essentials, and shut down all other operations. Close gov't office buildings wherever possible and cut off power and water to them. Eventually, our infrastructure will resemble that of Russia's.