Detroit budget crises: Can the people really win?
The current Detroit budget crisis -- a three year projected short fall of $389 million -- is the worst since the early 1980s. Mayor Kilpatrick has sent layoff notices to 700 workers effective March 4. He has cut all non-union salaries 10%. He has eliminated nearly 250 unfilled positions. The decrepit bus system will be further crippled by route eliminations and reductions in service. He plans a second round of more service and jobs cuts, including closing the Belle Isle Aquarium. Announcing these actions in a televised address January 12 he said: “we have reached a dire moment in the history of our city. We have failed for decades to make tough decisions by spending millions as … tens of thousands of people were leaving the city.”
The Detroit Public School System has a budget shortfall of $200 million. The unelected, appointed board and its CEO, Kenneth Burnley, propose cutting 5,400 jobs and closing 40 schools. Projections point to closing nearly half the schools.
Detroiters are not alone. There are serious budget crises in nearly every major city and most states with the same kinds of proposed drastic cuts. For example, New York City and San Francisco -- which aren’t as beat up as Detroit is -- arecutting jobs and services. The Bush administration has announced drastic proposed cuts in social programs including slashing the current $4.7 billion dollar community block grant funds, a move recently denounced by the National Council of Mayors.
Kilpatrick and Burnley give three explanations -- loss of population, loss of tax revenue, as well as increased healthcare and pension costs for employees. While these seem “reasonable” explanations at first glance, they are part of the corporate thinking that is foisted on us.
Michigan Citizen (http://www.michigancitizen.com/) reporters found that nearly $1 billion dollars of the total expenditures of the city and its units go to banks for debt interest and principal and $200 million was lost in tax breaks to corporations.
The Detroit schools are projected to lose nearly 10,000 students this year. The state of Michigan has not raised its per pupil allotment for several years and Governor Granholm (D) proposes cutting the allotment per student another $200.
The Green Party supports all the efforts of the Detroit city unions and school system employees to protect their jobs, our schools and our services. The continued privatization of services is not a solution but an aggravation of the problem -- services are still reduced and revenues leave the city. Detroit cannot go forward on the backs of city workers, nearly all of whom live in the city.
But we cannot go forward without changing what we do. The Green Party platform points out that the corporate share of taxes has fallen from 33% in the 1940s to 15% today, while the individual share has risen from 44% to 73%. Corporations must be forced to pay their fair share and it must be implemented nation-wide to avoid in-fighting among states for jobs. One day of the funds spent on the war in Iraq -- spent in Detroit -- would wipe out the shortfalls.
The state distributes $6,700 per pupil to school districts. This formula may please simple-minded legislators, but it is financially unsound. Simply because students leave doesn’t mean that utility, maintenance and teacher costs go down the same amount. Michigan State University education professors David Plank and David Arsen proposed special funding for school districts that lose students. Nearly all mid-Michigan school districts are facing some kind of budget crisis.
The Green Party platform is clear on what Michigan students
need. “.... all of our public schools remain current in such things as
infrastructure maintenance, materials, books, and access to the educational opportunities
available on the Internet/World Wide Web.”
Thousands of Detroiters, joining with millions of their neighbors around the country need to embrace these solutions and fight for them if anything is going to change. Support city unions in their upcoming actions, demonstrations and negotiations with the city. Support Detroiters trying to keep their schools open and staffed. Finally, Detroiters need candidates in the 2005 elections for mayor, city council and the school board who fight for money for our city, not for war and to make corporations pay their fair share.
-- Fred Vitale