Early ballots from Detroit city employees and its retired workers are strongly supporting Detroit's debt-cutting plan, giving new hope to city leaders who aim to exit bankruptcy court by this fall, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The city of Detroit sent ballots to roughly 32,000 pension recipients, offering them a stark choice: Vote for the plan to cut most pensions and eliminate a future cost-of-living increase, or reject the plan and risk additional cuts. The initial tally from votes of roughly 5,000 current and former city workers with pensions mailed in so far is favoring the city's plan at a more than two-to-one margin, city officials said. Support from pension-holders is seen as being key to the success of Detroit's plan. A coalition of philanthropic foundations, private donors and state leaders have pledged $816 million to help make up a shortfall in the city's pension plans to protect the city-owned art collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) from the auction block, but they'll only release the funds if a majority of pension-holders vote for the city's debt-slashing plan. A city-commissioned appraisal last year for some of the most valuable city-owned artwork pegged its value at up to $866 million. Some retirees and other creditors, however, have raised questions in bankruptcy court about whether the city lowballed the value of its city-owned DIA collection.
