Detroit free of bankruptcy

Three years after emerging from bankruptcy, the City of Detroit has been released from state financial oversight. Detroit’s bankruptcy was the largest municipal bankruptcy in history.

Detroit posted balanced budgets and surpluses for each of the last three years which was a key factor in the decision by Michigan’s Financial Review Commission (FRC) to free Detroit from oversight.

“For the first time in four decades, Detroit’s elected leadership will be in complete control of government functions,” Mayor Mike Duggan said in a statement

The statement also said,

The FRC will continue to exist for a 10-year term, although it will play no active role in City of Detroit operations. The city will be required to submit monthly financial reports, and will also submit its adopted budget and 4-Year Financial Plan each year. So long as the city continues to balance its budgets and meet other basic fiscal requirements, the FRC will stay inactive for the rest of its existence.

According to the Michigan Chronicle, the city has always been under some form of federal or state oversight since 1977.

“That includes 36 years of federal court oversight of the Water & Sewerage Department for environmental issues, a decade of U.S. Justice Department oversight of the police department over use-of-force and lockup conditions, and a decade of U.S. Housing and Urban Development control of the Detroit Housing Commission due to poor performance,” the Metro Times writes.