Decline and Fall
Crisis Financial Manager Tries to Fix Detroit Schools' Budget
Robert C. Bobb, the state-appointed emergency financial manager of the Detroit public school system, may have the biggest “turnaround” job in the nation.
The district, with an annual budget of $1.2 billion, has a deficit projected as of the end of last month to be $259 million and growing. Over the past 10 years, about half its students have left, leaving enrollment below 100,000 pupils for the first time since World War I. There is talk here in the Motor City that the school district, following the recent examples of Chrysler and General Motors, could go into bankruptcy, a call Mr. Bobb must make soon.
“To turn around the Detroit public school system, you can’t just say you have a sense of urgency. It has to be operationalized at every level of the organization,” Mr. Bobb said in a recent interview. “[W]e don’t have time to tinker around the edges. We have to be...
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