Defenestrated Detroit City Council: Don’t take away our kingdom!

Most cities with a population of around 700,000 have part-time city council members who are paid a per-meeting stipend, and maybe have one staff member (or the whole council shares a staff member or two) to help keep them up to speed on city business.

Detroit is not most cities. Even as the city runs an out-of-control deficit of more than $300 million, and faces accumulated debt obligations of $14.9 billion, the Detroit City Council is screaming bloody murder at the proposal of state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr to make them part-timers, and to reduce each member's staff from as many as eight (!) to just one. This would save the city more than $7 million a year, which is little more than a good start, but it's beyond the pale for those who have made their positions on the Council into personal fiefdoms. The Detroit News reports:

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The report prepared by Conway MacKenzie, an operational restructuring adviser contracted by the city, calls for the elimination of 78 of the council's 115 support staff members. The cuts, along with compensation adjustments and other changes, would shrink the 2013-14 fiscal year budget from $11.2 million to a proposed $3.8 million, the report says. Right now, each Detroit council member has a support staff of four to eight people. The firm is recommending they each have one. Charles Moore, a consultant with the firm, told the board Monday that five cities — Nashville, Cleveland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Charlotte, N.C. — were used as benchmarks. In each, the number of support staff ranged from zero to three. "Right there, that indicates to you, that the staff available to city council members is significantly higher," he said. Moore also noted that there's "tremendous redundancy" occurring between the council and other city agencies and departments.

Of course there is. Council members insist they need the staff to keep them apprised of what's happening with city business, in spite of the fact that the council members themselves are full-time employees who each take in a salary of more than $70,000 a year. If the staff are the ones keeping tabs on operational details, what are the Council members doing 40 hours a week? And how could the City Council possibly need 115 people to do this? Fortunately for the taxpayers, Orr has the power to make this change whether the Council likes it or not. Now we just have to hope he has the intestinal fortitude to do it in spite of their howling. I know I write a lot about Detroit, and perhaps many of you aren't interested because you're not from Detroit like Rob and I are. But remember: While the federal government spends 25 percent of GDP, almost as much is spent at the state, county and local levels throughout the country. So much attention is focused on the inefficiencies and waste in Washington, and rightly so, but government is also eating up resources in every city and town in this country. Detroit is a horrifying object lesson about what can happen when local officials are elected with no serious notion of what constitutes good government, or of how to manage an organization with any semblance of skill and responsibility whatsoever. While you're focusing on the problems arising from Obama policies - as you should - are you sure the local officials who are right under your nose aren't costing you just as much?