Michigan local government salary, 2007-2011

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Michigan local government employee salaries are public information under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act. Local governments, such as cities, counties and school districts, must disclose how much employees earn through salaries and benefits. A U.S. Census Bureau’s report on local government public employment concluded that Michigan was providing local government services through one of the most efficient systems in the nation as of September 6, 2011.

According to 2008 U.S. Census data, there were 600,755 employees working for the state of Michigan and local governments in the state. Out of these, 396,691 were full-time employees receiving net pay of $1,789,954,900 per month and 204,064 were part-time employees paid $210,303,706 per month. More than 60% of those employees, or 361,757 employees, were in education or higher education.

Fairness of pay

The Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS) investigates local officials' (county administrators, county board chairs, city mayors and managers, village presidents/managers, etc.) opinions and perspectives on a variety of public policy issues. A February 2011 MPPS report assessed local government leaders' views on their jurisdictions' employee pay and benefits. Personnel costs are a major component of the fiscal crisis in local government that is prevalent across the nation. The MPPS survey found that:

• Current pay rates: 6% say too high, 25% think too low, and 65% think they are about right
• Fringe benefits: 27% think they are too generous, 8% think they are not generous enough, and 62% think they are about right.
  • Leaders in large jurisdictions were more likely to say the benefits were too generous.
  • Many jurisdictions with less than 5,000 residents do not provide any fringe benefits.
• Healthcare benefits: 38% think employees don't contribute enough to health care costs
  • This amount increases to 68% of leaders from the largest jurisdictions
• Long-term obligations: 35% think pensions present long-term fiscal problems and 43% think future health care costs do as well.
  • For larger jurisdictions the numbers rise to 82% and 78% respectively

Local governments report taking a wide variety of actions to deal with these fiscal challenges, including:

• reducing the number of employees in their jurisdictions
• instituting employee furloughs
• having employees pay more toward their health care benefit costs
• having employees pay more toward their retirement plans
• moving retirement packages from defined-benefit packages (i.e., traditional pensions) to defined-contribution plans (i.e, 401k type plans).

Gov. Snyder’s proposed local reforms

Public employee health insurance

With unfunded retiree health-care liabilities of $12.6 billion, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder proposed in 2011 to reform public employee health insurance for local municipalities by either:

• Requiring an 80/20 employer-to-employee health-care premium split, or
• Assigning a dollar amount to local plans and comparing them to the state health-care plan

Currently, only 50% of Michigan localities require employment contributions into health plans. Among the other half that do, the average contribution is 10%, with an overall range of 2.5% to 20%.. The average contribution in the private sector is 30%.

Public employee pensions

Governor Snyder proposed penalizing local governments with a smaller share of state revenue if they did not control the rising cost of public employee pensions and health care. To do this, he wanted to require any new, modified or extended contract to be placed on a defined contribution plan or a hybrid retirement plan that caps annual employer contributions at 10% of base salary.

Snyder wanted to reform the amount of annual pension payments by fixing a set multiplier. Pension multipliers determine retiree payouts. An employee who worked for 30 years and whose final salary was $50,000 with a multiplier of 1.5% would get an average annual payment of $22,500 (30 years x .015 x $50,000). So, the same person with a multiplier of 3% would receive an annual payment of $45,000.

Multipliers vary across local governments, but more than 49% of firefighter unions and 37% of police unions have multipliers in excess of 2.5%. Snyder has proposed a set 1.5% multiplier for public employees and 2% for employees not eligible for Social Security.

Cities

According to a document supplied by the city of Grand Rapids, no employee earned over $150,000 a year as of 2011. The city manager drew a salary of $147,680 for 2011.

The number of city employees grossing more than $100,000 in 2009 was 37, with the highest salary being $144,337 and the lowest $30,667.

Salary ranges for top Grand Rapids city officials

Position	2009 salaries	2010 salaries	2011 salaries
City Manager	$127,645-$153,865	$130,836-$157,712	$130,836-$157,712
City Attorney	$105,495-$128,230	$108,131-$131,435	$108,131-$131,435
City Treasurer	$86,668-$105,690	$88,834-$108,332	$88,834-$110,975
City Clerk	$86,668-$105,690	$88,834-$108,332	$88,834-$108,332

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing earns a salary set at $176,176 by the City of Detroit Elected Officials Compensation Commission. However, his salary was reduced by 10 percent because of furlough days city employees are required to take, which lowered his annual salary to $158,558. During his first two years in office Bing donated his salary to the Detroit Police Department, but in November 2011 he began to personally accept his salary.

Counties

For Wayne County in 2007, the highest-paid employee was the Psychiatrist Director in the Department of Community Health with a salary of $161,757.36. The salary for the highest-paid employee in Oakland County was significantly lower: the highest-paid employee was Gregory Johnson, who was a Senior Management Executive for the Department of Transportation, with a salary of $118,923.

School districts

In many Michigan school districts school boards and administrators are trying to balance the budgets by freezing or reducing wages and benefits of the employees who make up 80 to 90 percent or more of district expenditures. Five teachers’ unions in Oakland County agreed in June 2010 to give up some planned-for salary increases and made concessions in their health-care plans. They included Bloomfield Hills, Lake Orion, Oxford, Walled Lake and Waterford school districts.

TeacherPortal ranked Michigan the fourth "Friendliest State" for teachers by measuring teacher salary against cost of living and comparing it to the other states. As of 2010, the average pay of a Michigan public school teacher was 16.5 percent higher than it was in Indiana, according to a salary comparison from the U.S. Department of Education.

As of 2011, the average salary for a teacher in Michigan with 25 years of experience was $68,230 with a bachelor’s degree, $78,826 with a master’s degree and $83,556 with a master’s degree plus credits.

School District	Salaries 2009-2010	Benefits 2009-2010
Detroit City Schools	$406,160,572.21	$175,381,935.34
Grand Rapids Public Schools	$79,745,743.99	$41,056,263.91
Utica Community Schools	$121,163,441.35	$49,582,252.90
Ann Arbor Public Schools	$80,094,883.16	$36,151,688.87

Bus drivers

One bus driver in Lansing earned $140,900 in 2009, after clocking in 2,198 hours of overtime - or about 42 extra hours per week. Another CATA bus driver earned $114,691 in 2009, and 25 other drivers reported incomes over $80,000.

Law enforcement

Sunshine Review filed a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request seeking salary information for the years 2008 to 2011 on ranking city police officers. According to data provided by the Grand Rapids Police Department:

• Police Chief Kevin Belk drew a salary of $117,364
  • The position of Police Chief drew a salary ranging from $93,812 - $119,712
• Deputy Police Chief James Farris earned $101,386
  • The position of Deputy Police Chief drew a salary ranging from $81,115 - $103,414
• Police Lieutenants earned a salary range of $76,063 - $80,580
• Police Captains earned a salary range of $86,146 - $90,458

Fire departments

Sunshine Review filed a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request seeking salary information for the years 2008 to 2011 for members of the Grand Rapids Fire Department, particularly ranking officers. According to data provided by the department, the following salary ranges came into effect in 2009:

• Fire Fighters earned a salary range of $38,269 - $58,467
• Fire Equipment Operators earned a salary of $62,178
• Fire Inspectors earned a salary range of $62,178 - $67,245
• Fire Instructors earned a salary of $69,290
• Fire Captains earned a salary of $71,333
• Battalion Fire Chiefs earned a salary up to $76,027
  • Battalion Fire Chief earned a salary of $72,718
• Deputy Fire Chiefs earned a salary up to $90,642
  • * Deputy Fire Chief Laura Knapp earned a salary of $86,698
• Fire Chief Robert Vansolkema earned a salary of $117,364

Government salary transparency

The Department of Education developed guidance to standardize the reporting of financial data for all Michigan public school district websites.

In addition, intermediate school districts must comply with Public Act 413 of 2004 (Enrolled House Bill 5475), which requires each intermediate school district (ISD) to post certain information on its website by December 31 of each year beginning in 2006 in the form of a report. Each ISD is required to maintain the most recent report on its website and to maintain paper copies of previous reports for at minimum 10 years. The Michigan Department of Education in turn is required to include a link on its website to the pages of each of the ISDs' reports.

The Bulletin 1014, also maintained by the Michigan Department of Education, contains various pieces of financial information about Michigan Public Schools, including revenue and expenditure per pupil. They also include the fall pupil count, average teacher salary and taxable value information.

Salary articles

In 2011, Sunshine Review requested salary information from 19 local governments in the state.

Cities

• Grand Rapids
• Detroit

Counties

• Wayne County
• Oakland County
• Macomb County
• Kent County

School districts

• Detroit City School District
• Grand Rapids Public Schools
• Utica Community Schools
• Ann Arbor Public Schools

Law enforcement

• Wayne County Sheriff
• Oakland County Sheriff
• Macomb County Sheriff
• Kent County Sheriff
• Grand Rapids Police Department
• Detroit Police Department
• Michigan State Police

Fire departments

• Grand Rapids Fire Department
• Detroit Fire Department

Salary records project

In 2011, Sunshine Review chose 152 local governments as the focus of research on public employee salaries. The editors of Sunshine Review selected eight states with relevant political contexts (listed alphabetically):

1. California
2. Florida
3. Illinois
4. Michigan
5. New Jersey
6. Pennsylvania
7. Texas
8. Wisconsin

Within these states, the editors of Sunshine Review focused on the most populous cities, counties and school districts, as well as the emergency services entities within these governments. The purpose of this selection method was to develop articles on governments affecting the most citizens.

The salary information garnered from these states were a combination of existing online resources and state Freedom of Information Act requests sent out to the governments.

A study published by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia said the city of Philadelphia faced challenges owing to the cost of public employee pensions. The report claimed the amount that Philadelphia paid to pension recipients limited the city’s ability to use its budget effectively.

The report said there were more individuals receiving pension benefits—33,907 claimants in 2006—than workers in the city—28,701. The authors recommended three steps towards addressing the problem of high costs in pensions: improved data collection, expanded transparency initiatives, and reductions to the city's overall budget.

Salary schedules can be published as ranges, not as specific compensation figures, and may leave out compensation received through health and retirement benefits, as well as benefits such as commuter allowances and cell phone reimbursements. This project aimed to close the gap and provide a more accurate picture of public employee salaries for the sake of public education and transparency.

External links

• "New study says public employees not overpaid," The Michigan Messenger, February 4, 2011
• "Benchmarking Michigan’s state and local government revenues and expenditures," Michigan Township Association, October 2010
• 2007 Michigan public employee salaries, ‘’LSJ.com
• Michigan Local Government Structure, Services and Practices, July 8, 2002

School districts

• 2009 Michigan teacher salaries by school district, Open Data
• 2007 Michigan Teacher Pay Series, MLive.com
• "Top ten salaries in West Michigan school districts," MLive.com, May 30, 2009
• Michigan Public Schools Ranked by Select Financial Information—Michigan Department of Education
• Budget and Salary Compensation Transparency Reporting—Michigan Department of Education
• "What do Michigan teachers earn?" December 6, 2008

Public universities

• 2010 Public university employee salary databases, The Collegiate Times
• "Amid tougher times, spending on payroll soars at Michigan universities," Detroit Free Press, March 27, 2011