There’s a tough financial picture developing in Ecorse, one of the numerous small cities that surround Detroit. The city could run out of cash by the end of this month. That could impact everything from city services to payroll, according to the Detroit News.
Once dependent on manufacturing and steel plants, Ecorse’s money crunch began in the ‘80s and ‘90s with the decline of the steel industry, said Louis Aguilar, Wayne County reporter for the Detroit News. Since then, the town has been searching for a new tax base.
“It nearly went into bankruptcy in the mid-'80s,” Aguilar explained. “It had a state-appointed emergency manager for three years [until] 2013, and it really wasn't released from state oversight until 2017.”
In fact, Aguilar said, Ecorse still hasn’t finished paying off its emergency loans from 10 years ago.
The city has tried to make investments to turn things around. It’s been working on redeveloping a a former manufacturing site alongside the Ecorse River. The city had hoped to sell the 50-acre riverfront lot, called the Mill Street property, by last year. The city also has a new public boat and kayak launch in the works.
Some city officials had thought at least one of these two projects would be up and running by now, but environmental cleanup and permitting issues resulted in a two-year delay. And that has put the city in a tough spot, said Aguilar.
“It means they're facing a cash crunch,” Aguilar said. “I mean, literally, by the end of this month. They're juggling things like not paying some bills, maybe lending itself some money from other funds that they're not supposed to touch to run the daily operations, but they might have to do it to get by.”
Aguilar said the city has also been considering whether or not it can be merged or absorbed by a nearby city.
“I don't know if anyone's interested, but the city that comes up most often in the discussion … regarding Ecorse is just its neighbor, River Rouge. It's a little bigger and it seems a bit in healthier shape. One big difference is that they approved marijuana in their city.”
While the city will soon get some state funding to carry them through the end of the budget year, it faces tough decisions about how to stay afloat beyond that. Some of those decisions include major cuts to the city’s 15 full-time employees, cutting hours for non-public safety employees to 32 hours a week, or even cutting streetlight power.
Hear the full conversation with Louis Aguilar on the Stateside podcast.
