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Evans Says Pay Cuts Part Of Plan To Dig Wayne County Out Of $88.5 Million Deficit

DETROIT (WWJ) -- Painful cuts are on the way as Wayne County tries to dig out of an $88.5 million deficit.

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans is calling for a five percent pay cut for most workers and expects organizational restructuring that will result in job cuts.

"In terms of still adequately providing services, but there are going to be some people at the top whose jobs will evaporate and there are going to be some people at the bottom whose jobs evaporate and all away through that task," Evans said.

Evans announced his plans first to stakeholders -- including unions. He then explained to the media how the plan will help to cut down a $52 million structural deficit.

"It does, honestly in my opinion, represent our most equitable and efficient attempt to eliminate the county's deficit, particularly the structural deficit," Evans explained.

Also among proposed cuts is health benefits for future retirees. Evans said that if nothing is done, the county's accumulated deficit could climb to $171 million within the next five years.

"County employees are not going to be happy at first blush with this -- who would be happy?" Evans said. "They've given for a good ten years believing that what they were giving was somehow helping the county to be stable. They were wrong -- it didn't. The county's finances have gone down like this, but we're still broke."

When asked if the new plan will help Wayne County stay out of bankruptcy, Evans responded with a resounding "absolutely."

"Even though in some areas we are worse off than Detroit was pre-bankruptcy," Evans answered. "We get rid of the structural deficit, we can certainly do this without bankruptcy."

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