The results have been ruinous, with the tax burden on Detroit residents and businesses seven times that of neighboring suburbs. That puts Detroit in a difficult position to compete for investment that creates jobs. Dearborn, adjacent to the city, has repeatedly cut tax rates under Mayor Michael Guido, partly by contracting garbage pickup and other services. Affluent West Bloomfield Township keeps its tax rates reasonable by avoiding the creation of costly bureaucracies typical of big cities. Nor would I want our own in-house trash collection.
Private enterprise can provide all that at a competitive price, and they pick up everything.
Onus on city employees Public contracts with private companies are not a cure-all. Unscrupulous people on both sides of negotiations have been known to work kickbacks into transactions, particularly in operations with large cash flows such as Detroit and Wayne County. Nor does competitive contracting mean that all city workers will work harder. Most city employees already work full days with few breaks for paychecks that will never make them rich. The upside is that workers would work smarter, offering more of their own input into how services could be better managed.