But stuff like this might be a reason for why your City is bankrupt.
Some people just don’t get it. A news crew from Detroit’s WXYX-TV discovered that the financially insolvent city of Detroit has wasted $4 million making monthly payments and paying mileage overages on 110 city vehicles whose leases have expired years ago. That’s the amount one accounting professor said the city is paying over what it would have cost to buy the cars outright, or turned them in and leased newer models. In addition to mileage fees, those cars are racking up maintenance costs that newer cars would not incur. In at least one case the city is paying more than $600 a month to lease an 8 year old Dodge Intrepid, spending about $65,000 on the car so far. At a new car dealer, $65,000 in cash or a $600/mo lease payment will put you in a pretty nice luxury car. Jalopnik’s Ben Preston reported on the story, to the site’s credit, but unfortunately the Gawker owned site ended up expressing sympathy for the same incompetents who are wasting those millions. Preston attributes the problem of the city of Detroit’s financial mismanagement to a faceless “city” or “Detroit”.
