Bankruptcy for Detroit

[Opmmur]

What Chapter 9 Bankruptcy
Means for Detroit
Detroit's Services Could Be Reduced, Its Union Contracts and Pensions Altered

By EMILY GLAZER

Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Here is an explanation of what that means.

Q: What is Chapter 9?

A: Chapter 9 is a bankruptcy-protection filing specifically for municipalities so they can develop and negotiate a plan to adjust their debts, according to the U.S. Courts website. A municipality can't file for Chapter 9 relief unless the state permits the filing. Detroit's emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, recommended bankruptcy, and Michigan Gov. Richard Snyder authorized the filing.

Related

• Record Bankruptcy for Detroit
• Bankruptcy Plan Called Unfair to Bondholders
• By the Numbers: A Long, Sad Decline
• Detroit's Statement: 'Best and Most Efficient Way'
• Earlier: Black Flight Hits Detroit
• Detroit's Press Release

Q: How will the filing affect Detroit residents?

A: The lights will stay on. But some services could be reduced, and the city could choose to raise taxes.

Q: What will happen to union contracts or pensions?

A: There could be big changes with union contracts, but it depends on how the bankruptcy judge responds to lawyer requests. Pensions for some retirees may not be altered, but those for current workers could be reduced.

Q: Will anything be sold?

A: Under the federal bankruptcy code, neither a judge nor creditors can force the city to liquidate its assets. This is a decision the city or the emergency manager would make. It is possible that Detroit-owned assets will be put up for sale, but it isn't known when that would happen and which assets would be on the block. They could include anything from the Detroit Zoo to a van Gogh painting to the historic Fort Wayne, all assets the city owns, according to public filings and media reports.

Q: Can creditors sue to get money owed?

A: Chapter 9 includes a provision called the "automatic stay" that operates to stop all collection actions against the city and its property upon the filing of a petition. This protects the city from lawsuits by creditors hoping to get paid.

Q: How long will it take?

A: Mr. Orr said during a news conference Thursday that while he has "concerns about the timeline," he plans to be finished "in late summer or fall of next year." Other municipal-bankruptcy experts have said they don't think that is possible. Recent municipal bankruptcies, such as Jefferson County, Ala., or Stockton, Calif., have taken more than a year to emerge from court oversight or are still in the process.

Q: How much will it cost?

A: Depending on how long the process takes, the process could cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars in legal and financial fees.

Q: What are bondholders getting paid?

A: This is still in the works. A deal is wrapping up to pay UBS AG and Bank of America BAC +3.14% Merrill Lynch 75 cents on the dollar on nearly $340 million in secured debt, according to people familiar with the matter. Unsecured creditors, such as some retirees and general obligation bonds, will likely get just pennies on the dollar.

 

[Opmmur]

Detroit bankruptcy could hit millions
of public sector retirees
John W. Schoen CNBC

The Link to more Information: Detroit bankruptcy could hit millions of public sector retirees - NBC News.com

Spencer Platt / Getty Images file

Once American’s third-largest city, Detroit’s population has fallen by a quarter since 2000. A shrinking population further erodes the tax base, intensifying the budget squeeze.

With its bankruptcy filing, the city of Detroit has entered uncharted territory. It's a dark place that no major U.S. city has ever gone — but that could change.

Despite the uncertainties surrounding what’s expected to be a hard fought legal battle, the outcome promises to inflict more pain on Detroit’s already-beleaguered city workers, residents, businesses, creditors and investors.

The case will also set a legal precedent that will be watched closely by other major cities across the country struggling under the weight of years of accumulated debt and underfunded pensions covering millions of public sector retirees.

"Everyone will say, 'Oh well, it’s Detroit. I thought it was already in bankruptcy,' " said Michigan State University economist Eric Scorsone.
Read more: Detroit becomes largest city to file for bankruptcy

"But Detroit is not unique. It’s the same in Chicago and New York and San Diego and San Jose. It’s a lot of major cities in this country. They may not be as extreme as Detroit, but a lot of them face the same problems.”

The bankruptcy filing follows a decades-long decline of a city that prospered through much of the last century as the capital of U.S. manufacturing. But as that industrial base has declined, so too have the city’s fortunes.

Video: Detroit is asking a federal judge for permission to go into Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, reports CNBC's Scott Cohn.

Detroit has endured booms and busts in the past. But even as the auto industry has roared back to life since the Great Recession, the economic recovery has left the Motor City in its rearview mirror.

Though unemployment has fallen from a peak of nearly 28 percent in 2009, some 16.3 percent of Detroit workers are still without a paycheck. As a result, income tax revenues have fallen 30 percent in the last decade. Meanwhile, the national recovery in home prices has yet to spread to Detroit. Property taxes are 20 percent lower than 2008 levels.

As tax revenues have shrunk, the cost of maintaining city services has grown. Tens of thousands of abandoned buildings and vacant lots, and a resulting increase in fires and crime, have increased the burden on firefighters and police. Forty percent of the city’s streetlights don’t work.

“There’s no way Detroit can afford to service 140 square miles anymore,” said Scorsone. “So for parts of the city, if your streetlight’s out, they’re not going to fix it. If your road has massive potholes, it’s going to turn it to gravel. It’s that stark.”

Many residents have responded by simply moving away. America’s fourth-largest city from the 1920s to the 1940s, Detroit’s population has further fallen by a quarter since 2000. A shrinking population further erodes the tax base, intensifying the budget squeeze.

cnbc

As tax revenues have shrunk, the city’s financial obligations have grown — mainly to an ever-expanding pool of 30,000 retirees, promised life-time pensions and health benefits by short-sighted government officials over decades who consistently failed to fund those future obligations. The city now owes more than $18 billion — roughly $25,000 for every resident.

Union officials, who have vowed to fight any effort to reduce benefits to retirees and vested workers, claim the city has undermined the pension fund by outsourcing city services to workers who don’t pay into the system.

"As older people leave the workforce, the city has been privatizing those jobs instead of bringing people back in to pay into the fund,” said Ed McNeil, special assistant to the president of Michigan AFSCME Council 25, which represents city workers.
Union officials also argue the city is owed hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes that should be collected before retirees are asked to take a cut in benefits.
“If they went after that money, they could pay their debts,” said McNeil.

Investors holding Detroit’s bonds have already taken a hit as the steady erosion of the city’s finances has slashed the city's credit rating to junk status. Last month, Kevyn Orr, a bankruptcy lawyer named to restructure Detroit’s debts, declared a “moratorium” on some interest payments.

In the days leading up to Thursday’s bankruptcy filing, Orr had been working with individual creditors to renegotiate those debts at a dime a dollar.
That could help close the gaping financial hole in the short run. But inflicting too much pain on bondholders could have dire long term consequences, according to Kim Rueben, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who specializes in municipal finance.

“You don’t want to have to do that because you want to keep your ability to borrow again to rebuild your city,” she said.

Video: Chairman of the Detroit Blight Authority, Bill Pulte is looking to get rid of the dangerous homes in the depressed city of Detroit. He is working to stabilize the city and help fix the suffering public safety issues by decreasing the number of abandon ...

Orr must now convince a bankruptcy judge to invalidate the city’s pension contracts, freeing him to reduce payments to retirees. The unions' lawyers will argue that pension and health benefits are protected by Michigan’s constitution, one of seven states that specifically ban cuts in retiree pension and benefit payments.

That’s why the case will be closely watched by states like Illinois and California, which also have badly underfunded their pensions. If Detroit is allowed to cut payments to its retirees, city and state workers in those states and others could see their future benefits pared back.

Future public sector workers can all but count on lower retirement benefits, as many state and local governments scale back the kind of financial promises that sank Detroit. With retirees living longer, those promises have become too costly to make.

“I think there is going to need to be an understanding with public employees that working for 30 years and being able to have a pension for that much time or longer is not sustainable,” Rueben said.

The crisis is also being watched closely in the White House.

“The President and members of the President’s senior team continue to closely monitor the situation in Detroit," Amy Brundage, a White House spokeswoman, said. "While leaders on the ground in Michigan and the city’s creditors understand that they must find a solution to Detroit’s serious financial challenge, we remain committed to continuing our strong partnership with Detroit as it works to recover and revitalize and maintain its status as one of America's great cities.”