Detroit will finish its current budget year with a $162-million cash-flow shortfall and doubts about the financial health of its pension funds, according to a new report by the city’s emergency manager that lays out the financial free fall in stark detail.
The report, mandated by the state after an emergency manager’s first 45 days in office, confirms a city in desperate shape, with costs for retiree benefits eating up a third of its budget and public services suffering as Detroit’s revenues and population shrink each year. That has led to deferment of payments and an accumulated deficit that would exceed $600 million were it not for borrowing practices the city has used to cover shortfalls.
A city that has taken out loans and moved money between funding sources “has effectively exhausted its ability to borrow,” said Kevyn Orr’s report to the state Department of Treasury, to be made public Monday.
By The Numbers:
■ $9.4 billion: bonds and other debt
■ $5.7 billion: unfunded retiree health care
■ $162 million: current net cash position
■ $15 million: amount city paid in worker’s compensation claims in each of the last two years
■ 78,000: number of vacant structures in the city
■ 60,000: number of vacant parcels of land
■ 18,500: number of retired city employees receiving medical benefits
■ 1,575: average monthly drop in population from 1950 to 2010
Sources: City of Detroit; State of Michigan; U.S. census
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