Pay

[shinblind]

Here are the salary range for the city manager of Ludington listed by the Michigan Municipal League.

POPULATION 8,076 

SIZE 3.78 sq. miles 

BUDGET $7.93 million 

STARTING SALARY $90,000-$110,000

Would someone mind telling me what the current salaries are for the 3 finalists for the position of city manager of Ludington?

Is there such a discrepancy between what they now make and what the winner will receive that the new city manager will be a total wage puppet?

 

[XLFD]

Shinblind, you caught me midpoint of working on an article dealing with this topic.  I will have that information and more in a couple of hours.

[Freedom Seeker]

With that great of a salary increase for our new candidates, I am surprised MML didn't have thousands of applicants.  And the council said we needed to increase manager salary to attract applicants.  They are out of touch with reality.

It looks like we paid $17k for the MML to run the interviews. In the Nov. 3  Personnel minutes. $17k for a wage study, $17k for interviews, $20k city manager wage increase, and $37k administrative wage increases.  Someone said finally. Where are we going to get this money?  Brock said it is his job to find the money?  Yeah?  Where?  Is he going to Florida to find it buried in a long-lost pirates chest in the sand?  Good luck with that Mr. Brock.  I hope you have a magic shovel.  Don't forget to bring the money back to Ludington after your vacation.

[AQUAMAN]

I've also noticed this too FS. The true City Mgr. salaries in West Michigan that equate to ours have a much larger population and annual budget to give that large salary to, and Ludington is basically way overpaying that position for sure. When you insist on a strictly "yes man" for the job, to do the corrupt things the Mayor insists on, and carry it forward in an unethical way, disguised cleverly and lying to the media and public in a very convincing way, then you are seeking out another Shyster Shay type, and that is NOT productive for locals, just the governing people.

[Freedom Seeker]

The hubub over the 1% administrative fee for tax collection added to our tax bills reminds me of this discussion.  Looks like Brock found around $50 k with the tax fee, but that barely covers the cost of the wage study, the MML interview costs, not to mention the city wage  increases.  We are getting so ripped, every councilor needs to wake up and every citizen needs to ring the alarm.

[Du Wright]

So if those figures are correct, adding $17k for wage study, anorher $17k for MML interview cost, $20k city manager wage increase, we get $54,000. Add the $34k administrative wage increase that Brock pushed through, we get $91,000. Looks like the 1% tax fee bringing in roughly $50 k leaves us a little short. But if you take just the wage increases, that's $54k yearly, then the $50k yearly tax fee nearly covers the wage increases. Pretty clever. Guess Brock didn't need to find gold in Florida after all, but it would have helped!

[Du Wright]

correction:. That was approx. $37k administrative wage increases early in 2019, totalling up to $91,000 increases to compensate for the wage study increases.  The point being, it seems that around that time, the 1% Adm. Tax got hatched and added to our property taxes.

[Freedom Seeker]

Just checking, since it seems other things have been done behind closed doors, were there proper votes on expending the $17k for a wage study, and $17k for the MML applicant search? Must have been? Anyone know?

[XLFD]

Dianne and FS,

I think the 1% PTAF was designed to effectively offset most of the deputy treasurer's wages, as noted in Thievin' Steven Brock.  This is also looked at in the post on COLDNews propaganda I have put out today.  The hiring of the DT without the council approval needed by charter is just one more way the council has been refusing to do their job.  The whole body is clueless unless they have somebody telling them what to do.  The two new councilors seem to be the only ones wanting to do things the right way.

[Freedom Seeker]

Clueless in Ludington. Maybe the city attorney should hire you to read through whatever it is he should be doing. Thanks for the answers and for looking out for the taxpayers purses.

[Du Wright]

Thanks again, X, for providing insight. Your memory is ever there and you are an endless source of what has gone on and of what should go on. A great thing about this tax fiasco and it's publication in the LDN is that Mitch Foster said ... we admit mistakes, thank those who brought it to our attention and work toward fixing the problem (paraphrased from memory of his memo to you). What more could we ask, except that it's done right the first time?