The Detroit City Council has rejected one member’s efforts to slash its own budget.
Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown wanted to cut the council’s roughly $13 million budget by a third.
Brown says that’s the same level of concessions city unions are being asked for to avert a fiscal catastrophe in Detroit —and the council should lead by example.
“That’s $5 million the unions don’t have to look for, that we don’t have to ask the unions and the lower-wage city employees to come up with," Brown said. "I think that’s leadership.”
But most of Brown’s colleagues rejected the measure. They said 30 percent was an “excessive” cut that would damage the council’s ability to function.
Council member Ken Cockrel Jr. says the council has already cut its budget about that much over the past three years, and additional cuts could damage the council’s ability to do its job.
“What it really comes down to is, you can do cuts that are responsible for the sake of sharing the pain, or you can do cuts that are really all about trying to score political points,” Cockrel said.
Cockrel says if it wasn’t for Council’s diligence, the depth of the city’s fiscal crisis might never have come to light.
Members ultimately voted the measure down 6-2.
