'It's Not Good' Wayne County's Financial Hole Deeper than Thought

Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans said Wayne County’s debt crisis is worse than his predecessor, Robert Ficano, led officials to believe. (Screenshot via YouTube)

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Wayne County’s debt crisis is worse than his predecessor acknowledged, new County Executive Warren C. Evans said in his first state of the county address since taking office last month.

With no state-approved plan for debt elimination, Wayne County could be placed under emergency management, the Detroit Free Press reports. A plan advanced by Evans’ predecessor, Robert Ficano, was rejected by the state.

Putting together a plan to eliminate Wayne County’s debt is an immediate priority for Evans, who has been given some breathing room to address the county’s financial state. How much time he’ll have is unclear.

Evans is scrapping the Ficano plan and developing his own, spokesman Lloyd Jackson said.

“We’re not dealing with that,” he said. “It just didn’t work. The numbers were bad. I don’t know where he got his numbers from. The numbers he had aren’t the numbers we have.”

“We’re coming up with our own plan that will work.”

Ficano said in early 2014 that the county was more than $200 million in debt due to property-tax losses from the Great Recession.

It’s unclear exactly how far off the mark the estimate was, Jackson said, explaining officials are still pulling solid figures together. It’s too soon to speculate on whether state oversight will be necessary.

“All I call tell you is, right now there are stakeholder meetings going on with the county executive and once he’s done, there will be more information,” Jackson said. “At this point, we just know right now it’s pretty bad and the CEO knows what the hole is and that’s why he’s talking to stakeholders.

“We just know it’s not good,” he said.

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