Money grab by Democrats on county board
As the clock was running out in December, the Oakland County Board of Commissioners took it upon themselves to give themselves an unbelievable Christmas gift – a 21 percent raise for their part-time jobs. That’s on top of a 2022 raise the commissioners gave themselves of 16.6 percent. In a period of two years, the county commissioners will have gone from earning $36,130 a year to $55,000 base salary a year, plus a generous benefit package (the same as full time county employees) that includes medical insurance, including prescription, dental and vision; life and AD&D insurance, plus disability insurance, a 401(a) defined contribution retirement, plus other items.
As the saying goes, nice work if you can get it.
This pay increase comes at the same time as voters all across the country voted their pocketbooks, pollsters tell us, concerned about bread-and-butter issues and costs including milk, eggs, beef, chicken…. You get the idea. But it seems the Democrat-led county commission didn't. They voted 11-5, along party lines with three absent, to astronomically increase their wages while many of their constituents are struggling to get by.
Let's first explain what county commissioner do. The county board of commissioners is the legislative and fiduciary body for each Michigan county. Commissioners are the representatives of their district’s residents in county government. They adopt the budget for the county, including for other county officials, and levy property taxes. They review and adopt grants and programs, adopt rules, regulations, ordinances and policies to manage county business, and establish new and manage existing county programs. It's an important function of county government – but the county is primarily run on a day-to-day basis by the county executive and deputy executives.
There are currently 19 Oakland county commissioners. According the National Association of Counties (NACO), for most county commissioners, it is a part-time job, and pay can be all over the board. In Wayne County, as of November 2024, commissioners will earn $91,324 beginning in January. In Ottawa County, commissioners just received a 60 percent increase, from $20,844 to $33,350, to provide them with a $1,000 a month “healthcare coverage stipend.”
Why this sudden rush to increase county commissioners' wages? After all, in just 2020, county commissioners rejected pay increases – although they did give board chair Dave Woodward a 30 percent stipend. Other commissioners felt it might be in bad taste during the pandemic to reward themselves too much.
That thinking clearly has passed. New legislation – by state lawmakers who earn less than $72,000 a year for their heavy lift – changed county commission terms from two-year to four-year terms, and prevented them from increasing their salary during that term. Democrats like to hide behind the logic that the board – thanks to their decision in past years – was reduced in size from 21 to 19 members so the “extra work” warrants the extra pay.
In all fairness, the county commissioners did approve well-deserved raises for the full-time elected officials – a six percent raise for county executive David Coulter, from $221,336 a year to $235,000; for county prosecutor Karen McDonald, a 7.1 percent raise, to $205,000 from $191,281. For sheriff Mike Bouchard, clerk Lisa Brown, treasurer Robert Wittenberg and water resources commissioner Jim Nash, each will get an eight percent bump, from $170,295 to $184,000.
But there is only one way to describe the raise for commissioners – an outrageous money grab.
Let’s hope voters remember this in four years. We certainly will.
