Flint might soon be pushed into bankruptcy by a lawsuit, Michael martinex reports in the Detroit News.
A group of city retirees is suing the city to stop proposed cuts to their health care benefits — a $5 million annual burden that could force Flint to become Michigan’s second-largest municipality to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, following on the heels of Detroit.
“The city won’t be able to stay solvent at this rate,” said Emergency Manager Darnell Earley. “I don’t want to see a bankruptcy in the city of Flint, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. If we get no relief from that retiree health care, then we have to start talking about that.”
It’s the latest dilemma for a once-thriving automotive hub that is experiencing many of the same problems as Detroit.
When the sprawling General Motors plants closed around the turn of the century, Flint’s downward spiral hastened.
Today, nearly one-third of its population lives in poverty. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost and about 15 percent of the workforce is unemployed. And the population — once nearly 200,000, ranking it as Michigan’s second largest city — struggles to stay above the 100,000 mark.
