By Steve Neavling and Matt Helms

Detroit Free Press Staff Writers

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is expected to announce today an effort to privatize management of the city's beleaguered bus system and its troubled public lighting department, according to people who have been briefed on the mayor's sweeping plans to slash costs and stave off the state appointment of an emergency manager.

Combined, the two departments cost the city more than $100 million a year to subsidize.

Bing's office was tight-lipped about the 6 p.m. address he plans to deliver liveon television from the Northwest Activities Center but said he will address the city's fiscal crisis and service issues, including transportation and lighting.

"Mayor Bing will provide a frank assessment of the city's fiscal condition and services," mayoral spokesman Dan Lijana said Tuesday. "He will offer solutions to long-standing service problems."

Council members and restructuring experts said Tuesday that they would be skeptical of the mayor's plan unless it includes pension and health care concessions from unions, adding that's the only way for the city to avoid running out of cash.

"You can't fix the structural imbalance until you deal with the rising costs of health care and pensions," said Marcus Hudson, a local expert on restructuring financially challenged businesses and municipalities. "The city is at a point where cutting doesn't help because the city made bad financial decisions by not dealing with these union issues earlier."

The catalyst for the address is a devastating report by the Ernst & Young accounting firm, ordered by the city and paid for with taxpayer money, that shows the city's finances are so slim that even laying off 2,200 employees would delay insolvency only until July.

Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/2011111...ighting-system