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Wayne County Executive Warns Of 'Financial Armageddon' If Deficit Not Addressed

DETROIT (WWJ) - Wayne County Executive Warren Evans is warning of what he calls "a financial Armageddon."

Speaking during a press conference Thursday, Evans says the county's general fund "is in trouble" and could run out of money by mid-year 2016.

State oversight is a possibility but Evans told reporters he doesn't think that will be necessary.

"We are working on solutions and if the stake holders of Wayne County are committed to fixing real structural change - we are comfortable that we can do that here in Wayne county - that we are not going to need an outside entity to come in and fix it," said Evans.

Without quick action -- paying bills could become a problem as quickly as by the end of the calendar year. He says if structural changes aren't made to the county's finances by August of 2016, "this is going to be very significant for a number of years - for an awful lot of people, not the least of which are the citizens of Wayne County and not the least of which are employees that provide those services."

He says the public employees' pension funds are dangerously underfunded.

"Whether we fix it or someone else fixes it - it's going to get fixed, and we think we can do an adequate job of that here," he stated.

Evans' predecessor, Robert Ficano, reported the county's accumulated deficit was about $60 million. Evans says it's nearly $70 million.

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