Oh, contrare dear author. They may have not grown, but they stopped the bleeding and sometimes that is all you can do
I think it was either Hamtramack or Highland Park he mentioned, that had something like 83 separate Union Pensions. The EFM froze them, and co-mingled them via his powers, something that couldn't have been done any other way. He stopped the insanity.
This EFM for Detroit will have to do something drastic like layoff the City Council for 19 months of his 18 month reign, or pay them only a dollar so they quit.
If I am not mistaken his scope of power will allow him to do so.
IMHO this EFM is going to need a team of people, each perhaps taking a department, and working 10 to 12 hrs a day 6 or 7 days a week to make rapid changes that have to be darn etched in stone so that a new City Council cannot FUBAR all their work after they are gone.
If the don't get it done in the alotted time, I think Chapter 9 or 11 is the only answer.
Domestic version of “the surge”.