The NEA sent the announcement around to the constituency today, without the usual flood of leftist invective. It's as if, finally, reality is beginning to set in. The Stimulus kept Detroit schools afloat one final year, likely in the attempt to buy enough votes in 2010 to keep the Congress in Democrat hands, or hoping that the economy would rise from the dead after decades of decline.
Neither happened. Even Himself is making appropriate noises in public about reducing spending, even if he obviously means not a word of it. In any case, there will be no no Stimulus Part Two. Not even on the radar.
Detroit has fallen to its population of 1910. The public school system is unsustainable in its present form, and no amount of invective will change that. It isn't that DoseWascawyRepubwikans can be blamed, since Detroit has been in the hands of the Democrats for decades. They ran the city and school system both. Into the ground, as it turns out.
So, Reuters reports:
The emergency manager appointed to put Detroit's troubled public school system on a firmer financial footing said on Thursday he was sending layoff notices to all of the district's 5,466 unionized employees.
In a statement posted on the website of Detroit Public Schools, Robert Bobb, the district's temporary head, said notices were being sent to every member of the Detroit Federation of Teachers "in anticipation of a workforce reduction to match the district's declining student enrollment."
Bobb said nearly 250 administrators were receiving the notices, too.
The district is unlikely to eliminate all the teachers. Last year, it sent out 2,000 notices and only a fraction of employees were actually laid off. But the notices are required by the union's current contract with the district. Any layoffs under this latest action won't take effect until late July.
In the meantime, Bobb said that he planned to exercise his power as emergency manager to unilaterally modify the district's collective bargaining agreement with the Federation of Teachers starting May 17, 2011.
Under a law known as Public Act 4, passed by the Michigan legislature and signed by the state's new Republican governor in March, emergency managers like Bobb have sweeping powers. They can tear up existing union contracts, and even fire some elected officials, if they believe it will help solve a financial emergency.
"I fully intend to use the authority that was granted under Public Act 4," Bobb said in the statement.
A quick search about Public Act 4 leads one to the State of Michigan website, with a summary of the law--twelve steps involved (irony not lost upon us...), and we pick up toward the end:
Step Nine: If the Governor confirms the determination of a financial emergency, the Governor is required to declare the unit of local government in receivership and appoint an Emergency Manager who serves at the pleasure of the Governor.
Step Ten: Upon being placed in receivership, the governing body and chief administrative officer of the unit of local government are prohibited from exercising any of their powers of offices without written approval of the Emergency Manager, and their compensation and benefits are eliminated.
Step Eleven: Within 45 days of appointment, an Emergency Manager must develop a written financial and operating plan.
In addition to other powers, an Emergency Manager may reject, modify, or terminate collective bargaining agreements, recommend consolidation or dissolution of units of local government, and recommend bankruptcy proceedings.
Step Twelve: A unit of local government is removed from receivership when the financial conditions which were the basis for the underlying financial emergency are corrected in a sustainable fashion as determined by the State Treasurer in accordance with the Act.
Detroit Public Schools are at Step Ten. No amount of name calling, marching on the capitol, striking, work slowdowns, ballot-box stuffing, voting the dead, voting the illegal aliens, voting the felons, race-baiting, or any of the standard repertoire of The Left changes the fact that Detroit has shrunk dramatically in size from its once great status. The can was kicked so far down the road, for so long, that Detroit ran out of road.
By the way, the layoffs begin in Wisconsin next Friday, as promised by Governor Walker earlier this year.
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