Dearborn: Report of City Salaries Misleading
Dearborn city officials say a recent online story about the 2011 salaries of City of Dearborn employees is inaccurate and issued a release to share the extensive checks and balances regarding compensation outlined in Dearborn’s City Charter.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy recently posted a story reporting that Dearborn’s top city administrators saw lucrative pay increases while many lower-paid Dearborn employees took pay cuts in 2011. According to the report, while Mayor John B. O’Reilly’s salary stayed relatively the same — “his gross income increased by $500 in 2011 from the previous year, seven top administrations saw their gross income increase by 8 percent to 12.8 percent from 2010 to 2011.” See story HERE.
In a release issued Thursday, Dearborn officials say the City Charter gives the Mayor authority to appoint a chief labor negotiator, who negotiates with unions on the administration’s behalf to determine annual salary adjustments for fulltime city employees. Negotiated settlements must then be approved by the City Council.
Under the City Charter, the Mayor does not have authority to give annual raises to people in appointed positions.
Instead, the City Charter specifies in Section 6.8 that people in appointed positions may receive an average of up to the same annual increases and decreases negotiated with city unions and approved by the City Council.
People in appointed positions wait until multiple union contracts are settled when the average of the annua increases can be determined, city officials explained.
According to the city, appointed employees had not seen an annual salary increase since 2007. Annual salaries for appointed employees stayed the same in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
In 2011, with the resolution of union contracts covering 2008 and 2009, general employees, as well as people in appointed positions, received retroactive pay for those years. This occurred in a single budget year, according to the city press release.
The union settlements meant that from 2007 to 2011, employees’ salaries increased a total of about 3 percent for that period, and therefore so did appointed salaries. There is no salary increase in place for 2012, the city press release said.
However, Dearborn officials say the Mackinac Center’s inaccurate report implied that appointed positions had received double-digit increases in their annual salary in just one year from 2010 to 2011.
The inaccurate report purposely implied that gross earnings and salaries are the same, Dearborn officials said. In reality, gross earnings include other significant factors, like the retroactive payments in 2011.
The city explains that gross earnings in any given year also can include longevity payments to employees serving 10 years or longer, and factors that can vary from year to year, such as overtime for qualified employees, the choice to cash in paid time off (PTO) days, and minor payments, like mileage.
To clarify what the inaccurate online report should have listed as the 2010 and 2011 annual salaries, consider an example of one of the appointed positions featured in that story. Dearborn provided the information below:
| 07/01/09 | ||||||||
| Contracts | ||||||||
| Settled | ||||||||
| SALARY | ||||||||
| DIRECTOR OF: | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |
| Economic & Comm Dev | 93,900 | 94,869 | 94,869 | 94,869 | 94,869 | 97,524 | 97,524 | |
| Finance | 98,043 | 99,023 | 99,023 | 99,023 | 99,023 | 101,794 | 101,794 | |
| Information Systems | 96,587 | 97,553 | 97,553 | 97,553 | 97,553 | 100,284 | 100,284 | |
| Dept. of Public Information | 82,306 | 83,129 | 83,129 | 83,129 | 83,129 | 85,455 | 85,455 | |
| Dept. of Public Works | 99,201 | 100,193 | 100,193 | 100,193 | 100,193 | 102,977 | 102,977 | |
| Recreation | 90,569 | 91,475 | 91,475 | 91,475 | 91,475 | 94,035 | 94,035 | |
| Exec. Assist. To Mayor | 108,544 | 109,629 | 109,629 | 109,629 | 109,629 | 112,697 | 112,697 | |
The City Charter allows the Mayor, with Council approval, to set the salaries for appointed positions only once at the beginning of each elected term. It is a checks and balance provision that protects the taxpayers and doesn’t make department head salaries a controversial issue, the city states in the release.
According to the city, the last two opportunities to set department head salaries were in 2006 when the late Mayor Guido was in office, and in 2010 after Mayor O’Reilly was elected. However, due to the faltering economy, both Mayors declined to recommend one time increases for department heads as they began their new terms.
February 24th, 2012 at 7:33 am
Isn’t an Executive Asst and admin? $112k seems like an awful lot. The big boy must have learned from McNamara and Ficano…
February 24th, 2012 at 8:18 am
Huh? Do the math. all of the people did receive pay increases! So how is that misleading? Is this new math by the City . . . geez
February 24th, 2012 at 9:32 am
Looks to me like some creative financing on the Big Boys part for the people, because he believes they (the public) are very gullible. Enjoy it while you can, because the ride is about to end Big Fella.
February 25th, 2012 at 6:36 am
Dearborn voters. You reap what you sow.
February 25th, 2012 at 7:00 am
It’s interesting to hear the mayor say “he’d like to do away with longevity bonuses”. Ive been told the mayor had his hand out getting his longevity check for his time as a PART TIME councilman. Now that’s unethical.
Why do we need to pay department heads so much money to just look at the mayor and shake their head in agreement. Wouldn’t bobble heads be cheaper?
So much for the mayor and his appointees taking a 10% pay cut! Try to lead by example and use your collective IQ to make some good decisions.
February 25th, 2012 at 7:58 am
Those salaries are no where near the Takia Mullin/Ficano fiasco. I would say those positions are ‘well paid’ not ‘over paid’.
February 25th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
I don’t want to know why they’re getting raises or maintaining their current level of pay, I want to know why they haven’t taken pay CUTS before asking anyone else to!
February 25th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
“Well paid” if the City were in the black, we are in the red – therefore, yes WAY, WAY, WAY, OVER PAID!!!!! The assistant, to the assistant, of the assistant of the head groundskeeper would be making a buck-ten w/this crew!!!!
February 25th, 2012 at 5:33 pm
Part of this began with the Charter Commission Members…those commissioners may have changed the language regarding pay increases for top administrators… the old language specify identified GENERAL EMPLOYEES, as the MIRROR. They now follow the increases set by the TWO UNIONS …POLICE AND FIRE. The fire fighters were the union that seen a 9% increase over the last 3 years not the GENERAL EMPLOYEES!The general city employees seen a 1% pay increase per year over 3 years & a increase in medical co-pays, no complaints, just have the administrators provide the real numbers.Hey this is just tip of iceberg,check out the January Civil Service minutes,ask for details.Pay increases with out city council approval…on and on and on joe
February 25th, 2012 at 6:32 pm
While I have read the letter and wouldn’t doubt the increases and the pay with the way things have been going in this city, you have to realize that the Mayor is trying his hardest to cut everyone else’s pay by a good margin. Add on top of that of having people pay even more on their health insurance and such.
I’m sorry but he wants so much from he little guy but when it comes to his friends, he just says “here’s more”.
February 26th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
The Big Boy takes advantage of the lower paid employees, and buys his friennds by giving them raises, at the residents expense of corse — because he is and always has been a free-loader.
March 3rd, 2012 at 7:17 pm
QWERTY: I agree. The Mayor makes about $125K, I think. Why is his assistant making $112K? Too much.
March 11th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
cut the city clerks position, we don’t need a do nothing figure head getting 70+ salery, while she runs errands on city time.