Appointed officials in Grand Rapids agreed to scale back the wage increases they recently received.
In a press release, the City officials said they were "responding to Governor Rick Snyder's call for realigning public employee compensation."
City Manager Gregory Sundstrom, City Attorney Catherine Mish, and City Treasurer Lauri Parks said they will return to their salary levels that were in effect in 2009.
City Treasurer Albert Mooney agreed to return 2% of his salary increase.
The Grand Rapids Press reports that if their request is granted:
Sundstrom's pay will fall back to $142,000; Mish's pay will return to $114,092; Parks' pay will go back to $93.731; and Mooney's pay will fall to $108,755.
The officials said in 2010, "appointed officials again led by example, voluntarily accepting an additional 10% reduction in overall compensation." This included turning down a 2.5% pay increase that was scheduled to take effect on June 30, 2010.
The Grand Rapids officials say the the 2.5% pay increase was "received, and is still being enjoyed today, by all of the City's unionized workforce."
The city is in the middle of re-negotiating it's collective contracts with the City's unionized workforce. And the negotiations are "difficult" as Mayor George Hearwell said in his State of the City address last Saturday.
As Michigan Radio's Lindsey Smith reported, Heartwell said:
The city’s financial future depends on city employees taking further concessions in pay and benefits. "There’s no doubt in my mind that unless we tackle this problem today, we cannot be sustainable over the long term," says Heartwell.
The vast majority of the city's workforce in Grand Rapids is unionized.
I called up City Attorney Catherine Mish, one of the officials taking the pay cuts. I asked her whether she and the others are sending a signal to the city's unionized employees:
"I would have to say 'yes.' We're hoping the unions agree to similar concessions."
Mish said the unions are under current contracts that run from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2013.
The city wants concessions in those contracts that would cut 10% from the employees total compensation. The concessions include:
- A cut of 2.5% in pay
- increased employee contributions to pension plans
- increased employee contributions to health insurance plans
- and the elimination of "longevity pay" - checks that workers can receive after being employed for a certain number of years
