Detroit’s Turnaround plans according to Mayor Bing

On Wednesday, Mayor Dave Bing unveiled his turnaround plan as laid out by his Turnaround Team for the City of Detroit. After reviewing much of Bing’s plans, I must say that some of it I agree with it if what the Turnaround Team says is waste and cost saving measures than I say implement it tomorrow. However the only two glaring problems I have Bing’s plan is the outsourcing of our city’s payroll department because I have never seen payroll outsourcing work effectively especially considering how Detroit Public Schools tried it and it hasn’t really saved DPS anything. Nonetheless my other problem is the thought of reducing and consolidating the number of union representatives in city government but there is no talk about reducing or consolidating many of the mayoral or non-union staff positions in city government.

Nonetheless much of the details of the 145 page report and 1 page action plan are good reasoning and I believe the city should have made many of these changes years ago if not a decade ago. However the reality is that, why did it take this long perhaps has to do with the fact that many of the people working in Bing’s administration and other mayoral administrations are recycled work and even those who are new to the arena of Bing’s administration or previous administrations didn’t have the guts to tackle these issues out of fear of losing certain support in future elections. Still it is clear Detroit needs to make some sound concrete decisions that will hopefully save it millions of dollars in the future and that is something I am all for if it produces better city services which is piss poor to say it.

So armed with concrete proposals to bolster the city's precarious finances, Mayor Dave Bing now will take his "turnaround" report to the City Council next week and begin to push for its speedy implementation. Bing made public Wednesday the 145-page document that outlines his plans for as much as $250 million in savings through 150 recommendations, including closing a power plant, renegotiating city contracts and privatizing an airport. Charlie Beckham, the mayor's chief administrative officer, said he doesn't expect major hurdles because council members realize the "revolutionary" changes are overdue. Even so, some of the plan includes privatization of services, which has always been controversial in Detroit. "We'd all be presumptuous to assume that council doesn't understand that it really is time to change," Beckham said. "I think they are on that wavelength." "There will be some good, healthy dialogue on this but at the end of the day we'll get there because there's really no other choice."

Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said the crisis team should be "commended" for the report that catalogues the "profound challenges this government is facing." But she warned implementing the report's findings "requires political will" from everyone in the city, and that's a tall order. "There will be serious problems with changing our collective mindset," Cockrel said. "And it is a challenge we have to face because if we don't the future is bleak and non-existent." The report, which was initially set to be released shortly after Bing celebrated his 100 days in office, would save the city millions of dollars by closing facilities, purging waste and fraud, and seeking privatization of some services, including the Coleman A. Young International Airport, also known as city airport, and the city's payroll department.

The mayor said he knew the city was not going to be able to implement all recommendations contained -- now categorized as short-, medium- and long-term -- in the weighty report put together by his turnaround team co-chairs, retired Ford executive Joseph Walsh, magazine publisher Denise Ilitch and former Deputy Mayor Freman Hendrix. The mayor and the turnaround team co-chairs met nearly every Tuesday for months dating back to when Bing took over as mayor in May. "This is a living document," Bing said. "We will continue to look at it. We will update it. We will improve it. We're not going to stop with the recommendations that we have agreed upon because there are several more recommendations that we will have to look at over a longer period of time."

The short-term goals, which would be met in 90 days, include outsourcing management of the airport, closing the Mistersky Power Plant, hiring a chief procurement officer and reducing the number of city bank accounts by 50 percent. The medium-term recommendations, to be implemented in six months, would include eliminating discretionary spending, consolidating services city wide, increasing EMS outstanding debt collection and consolidating the information technology services department. Longer-range changes and goals that could take up to a year would be restructuring the city debt, seeking the reduction and consolidation of union representation through various bargaining units, and consolidating citywide leased and owned real-estate inventory.

Beckham said the administration is serious about pushing these changes and there's no chance that this report will be "stuck on a shelf." "That's not going to happen with this," he vowed. The mayor said that even though the report refers to potential savings of $250 million annually, "I don't know that we internally totally agree with all of those potential savings over the time frame that we're talking about. But there are, without a doubt, tremendous cost savings that can be generated by implementing some of the recommendations."

Bing said the short-term savings could be $50 million to $75 million, but the majority of savings won't come until next fiscal year. He did not provide a figure. "It's not a small report," Walsh said. "We can understand how the city can't tackle all these things right off the bat. We're hopeful that this report can really help the city move forward on the issues it's going to have to address because of the economic problems the city and the state are facing." Bing said the city can do some consolidation and "cut out a lot of cost."

Now that Bing’s turnaround team has produced this quote unquote working document the next phase of Bing’s plan should not just about implementing the plan but what to do with the cost savings that will come of it which in turn means city revenue. Therefore another grip I have with Bing but not necessary a problem yet but what I hope Mayor Bing would do is to create a team of community leaders and young adults to create ideas for what could be implemented using the money saved from the recommendations. I reason I say community leaders and young adults is because it is clear from Bing’s press conference and who all set on Bing’s turnaround team, they were all from big business or were old heads from previous government administrations within the City of Detroit. Therefore now Bing needs to convene a team of community and young adults like myself to think of ways the administration could attract new businesses as well as implement programs that will improve the quality of living within the city with the costs that are reportedly going to be saved from Bing’s turnaround plan.

Even the Detroit News Editorial section says, “Detroit Mayor Dave Bing now has a solid plan from his citizen advisers on how to cut as much as $500 million out of the city budget. That's great. But cost-cutting plans from business and civic groups are a dime a dozen in this state. The test of Bing's ability to revive Detroit will be his determination to enact the strategies and what he does with the savings.” Therefore I hope that Bing’s administration takes my advice and convenes of group of young adults along with some core city leaders of various civic groups that usually don’t have a sit at the table of city government and action plans to convene to discuss the future of the city as well as what can be done with the savings that Bing is proposing.

Still what's most distressingly revelatory about the transformation report is the amount of dysfunction it identifies in the city's bureaucracy. The report contends that by modernizing and consolidating such functions as purchasing, real estate and technology, tens of millions of dollars could be saved. Simple fixes such as cutting the number of city bank accounts would also produce huge savings. The report suggests selling Detroit City Airport to save $2 million. That should have been done yesterday. The airport is barely used and is a major cash drain on the city budget. The same can be said for the recommendation to shutter the Mistersky Power Station and instead buy electricity from DTE Energy.

As the Detroit News said, “The missing ingredient is a step-by-step plan from Bing on how he intends to implement the recommendations. Taxpayers have seen so many of these reports come and go over the years that they can be forgiven if they're skeptical about whether it will produce results. The report should have been unveiled along with an action plan for its implementation. There's no time to waste.” To the Bing administrations credit they did provide a page action plan that basically sums up short, medium and long term goals but the details of how it will get done is missing.

So it is clear the status quo in the City of Detroit won’t do anymore and much of the recommendations in the turnaround are good ideas and need to be implemented now especially since if nothing is done, the advisers told the mayor, Detroit's budget deficit will grow to $480 million next year and $750 million the year after. Those numbers spell receivership for sure. Bing must also level with city workers about what he'll do with the savings. Neither employees nor City Council members -- current or future -- should think savings gained from efficiencies and better management can be used to offset the layoffs and wage and benefit cuts that Bing is demanding.

Every dollar saved will have to be used to keep the city solvent. Bing should get the savings started today by issuing executive orders implementing as many of the report's recommendations as he can get away with without going through City Council. So I hope the Bing administration listens to my advice as well as the Detroit News Editorial page especially considering that the future of Detroit rests with people like me and we should have a say so in what becomes of the city’s savings outside of keeping the city solvent which should be the first objective of the savings. However the second objective needs to be implementing programs and projects that will make Detroit more attractive to young adults and working families again as well as small and big business industries which is why a team of young adults and certain civic groups who are usually not given a chance to have a say so in city government needs to be convened by Mayor Bing to determine what to do with the monies from the cost saving once they are implemented and put into effect.

Additional Facts
At a glance
Mayor Dave Bing unveiled 145 pages of recommendations from his volunteer "crisis turnaround team" on Wednesday. Here are highlights.

Plans for next three months
 Privatize the city's airport to save $2 million
 Outsource the city's payroll department
 Close the Mistersky Power Plant to save $8 million
 Cut the number of city bank accounts

Plans for next six months
 Eliminate discretionary spending
 Study consolidation of services
 Renegotiate procurement contracts and end emergency purchases to save $20 million
 Increase collection of debt from ambulance runs

Plans for next year and beyond
 Restructure debt to save $8.4 million
 Consolidate Neighborhood City Halls, the 311 call center and Community Affairs
 Reduce and consolidate the number of paid union representatives
Source: City of Detroit