DETROIT —Voters in the state’s largest city approved a new charter on August 6, but the fine print will make it more difficult than ever to streamline city services. It may be a good case study of how not to achieve efficiencies.
The Detroit News editorialized on August 13: "The mayor, for example, must first submit a report justifying the need to privatize, including a ‘comprehensive’ cost analysis and projected savings. The council would have to give its OK before any bids are solicited, and employee unions would have to be afforded an equal opportunity to bid for work. Once bids are sorted out, the council must fly-speck management practices, work rules, performance quality of contractors, effect on city employment, pension benefits, etc."
After all that, then the council would have to approve the privatization not by a simple majority but by a two-thirds vote. "It would be tough enough to get a majority of Detroit’s union-dominated council to agree to any such thing," says the News, and "[I]t will be virtually impossible to get two-thirds agreement."
