As If You Didn't See That Coming In Southeastern Michigan

The Detroit Water and Sewage Department, now with the suburbs paying an even larger share of the bill in return for  few seats at the table is announcing some heavy rate increases to cover the deferred maintenance that occurred under the prior corrupt regime.

The Detroit Free Press: Suburbs warned: Double-digit water rate hikes possible

The projected increases come as the region prepares to launch the new Great Lakes Water Authority, a regional entity that will manage the department, which the City of Detroit owns. The authority was created as part of Detroit's bankruptcy and included a promise that it would limit budget increases to 4% annually.

But that doesn't mean rates can't rise more than that, officials said today.

That promise "was always that we would not move forward with a budget request that was more than 4% from the prior year," water department Director Sue McCormick said. "But that was a budget that contained a lot of unknowns, and some estimates, and some contingences, so by the time we got the bond documents for planning purposes, we had changed our projections."

Yeah, 4% doesn't mean 4%.  Yet again, the suburbs were sold a bill of goods on this deal, actually the suburbs did exactly buy the deal, instead they suffered getting the "goods" rammed down their throats in the Detroit bankruptcy and grand bargain extravaganza.

Interestingly enough, according to the article, at least some of those that knew this was coming when this was being promoted as a great deal were under a gag order and not allowed to talk about it.

Regionalism apparently having the suburbs bailout and pay for the corruption and ineptitude of the city of the designated region, after the city has run out of its own money to waste and divert to politician's and crony's pockets.