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State Sen. Sylvia Santana (D-Detroit) introduced legislation last week that would end nearly a decade of state oversight of Detroit, MichiganAdavance.com reported. The bills introduced on May 17 call for repealing conditions of the “Grand Bargain,” a controversial plan that used funds from foundations, corporations, unions and the state to protect the Detroit Institute of Arts and help the city dig out of bankruptcy. In exchange, the city placed restrictions on the city and created a nine-member commission of mostly unelected gubernatorial appointees to provide oversight of the city. “At the time, Detroit’s ‘Grand Bargain’ kept the city’s lights on and kept people safe during times of tragic upheaval in one of America’s great cities — but that time is over, and the state must cede control back to local elected officials,” Santana said in a statement. It’s not yet clear how much support the bills have in the GOP-controlled Legislature.

Moody’s Investors Service raised its rating for Detroit’s debt, moving the city one step closer to investment grade in its latest stride since filing for bankruptcy in 2013, Bloomberg News reported. The credit rating company upgraded Detroit’s general obligation debt, which is backed by the city’s full faith and credit, one notch from Ba3 to Ba2 on Wednesday. Detroit has roughly $2 billion in debt outstanding, but its financial outlook remains positive given how the city has managed through challenges after emerging from court protection in 2014, Moody’s said. “The upgrade to Ba2 reflects the city’s healthy financial position supported by strong management that has successfully navigated challenges, such as weak property tax wealth, volatile revenue structure and limited revenue raising flexibility,” the Moody’s report said. Last year the city sold $175 million of bonds to finance a blight removal plan that began in the immediate aftermath of its emergence from court protection. That deal was just the third backed by the city’s creditworthiness since its bankruptcy and its first social bond offering.

The late Coleman Young, who was Detroit mayor from 1974 to 1994, said that when the nation gets a cold, Detroit gets pneumonia. That’s sadly held true during the coronavirus pandemic: The city had recorded 7,904 cases of COVID-19 and 716 deaths from the disease as of April 21, making it a national hot spot and putting Wayne County, Mich., among the U.S. counties with the most deaths from the virus so far, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The city of 670,000, Detroit is bracing for a recession as stay-at-home orders decimate businesses and the virus overwhelms medical and social resources. Casinos, which generate 17 percent of municipal revenue, are shuttered indefinitely. A quarter of all Michigan residents are already out of work. “While we have a health crisis, we have the biggest budget crisis this city has seen in seven years, and we have to solve it at the same time,” Mayor Mike Duggan said at an April 14 briefing. The pandemic is a major financial test for cities across America. In a recent survey conducted by the National League of Cities, more than 2,100 municipalities of all sizes said that they were expecting budget shortfalls. But Detroit is in an unusually precarious position. The crisis has hit five years after the city emerged from the largest-ever municipal bankruptcy and two years after it shed state financial oversight.