Detroit’s public workers, retirees and bondholders finish voting today on a plan that would impose $7.4 billion in cuts on investors and pensioners, just short of a year after Michigan’s biggest city filed a record $18 billion bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported today. Since the July 18, 2013 filing, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has been negotiating with stakeholders to put the city of 700,000 back on its fiscal feet after years of decline. Imposing cuts was the only way to continue supplying essential services and repair Detroit’s blighted landscape, according to Orr. Current and former city employees, as well as investors, would be forced to take less than the $10.4 billion they are owed if U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes approves the city’s plan after a trial set to begin next month.
