There were some great in-depth reporting on the mismanagement of the pension from the 2 Detroit Newspapers when that story was gaining steam. Tales of cronies being made Pension Managers with no financial background loosing 1.5 billion comes to mind. I don't know if the Teachers Pension did this, but any year the Pension did well via the markets, the pension recipients got a bonus kind of like the "Big 3". But what they were doing was dipping into seed corn for the future by the disbursement of this equity / asset. Even Mayor Dennis Archer tried to get to stop this in the early to mid 90's and the dysfunctional City Council said Nyet..
I hope Cripplecreek can confirm what I have posted here and that I got the info correct...
Thanks for helping with my hunch.