Wayne County still leads neighbors in CEO appointees
During his successful fight to replace Robert Ficano as Wayne County executive in 2014, Warren Evans pledged in his campaign literature to “deflate the bloated amount of political appointees in Wayne County government.”
That pledge followed criticism of Ficano’s alleged use of appointees for campaign work as well as concerns about the number of appointees and their salaries in the financially struggling county.
More than a year into his term, Evans has one more appointee than Ficano did when he left office at the end of 2014. Evans: 133; Ficano 132.
Related:See appointed positions, salaries for Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Detroit
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In fact, Wayne County's CEO has more appointees than Oakland, Macomb and the City of Detroit's CEOs combined. And the reason, in part, can be traced back to Wayne County's charter.
But populations have shrunk in Wayne County and Detroit, and revenue concerns have continued in all four areas in the years since the Great Recession, prompting a focus on the size and scope of local government. In addition to the CEOs, other countywide elected officials have their own appointees not included in this review.
Wayne County, which has 3,649 employees, including seasonal workers, also pays out the most money in salary of the four governments for its CEO appointees — who are all at-will employees — at $12.5 million. But the average annual salary — $93,807 — trails the others, in part because Evans’ appointees include a wide range from high-level officials to clerical staff. Evans’ highest-paid appointee, Chief Financial Officer Tony Saunders II, makes $158,156; his lowest-paid appointee, an office worker in the Department of Homeland Security/Emergency Management, makes $31,000. Evans’ salary is $154,521.
By contrast, Macomb County, with 2,634 employees, spends $1.4 million and Oakland, with 4,918 employees, spends $2.74 million on CEO appointees, although they come with higher average salaries — $116,427 and $130,693 respectively. Oakland’s highest-paid CEO appointee is Deputy County Executive Gerald Poisson at $166,989, and Executive L. Brooks Patterson makes $187,748. In Macomb, the highest-paid CEO appointee is Corporation Counsel John Schapka at $134,780, and Executive Mark Hackel makes $139,773.
The City of Detroit, with 8,711 full-time employees, pays $10.7 million in mayoral appointee salaries at an average of $110,439. Detroit has five mayoral appointees making more than $200,000 per year.
In Wayne County, 52 made at least $100,000, in Oakland, 19 made at least $100,000 and in Macomb, 10 made at least $100,000. Detroit had 49 with salaries between $100,000 and $200,000.
According to data from October, David Manardo, listed then as executive director of the Detroit Building Authority, had the highest base salary among Mayor Mike Duggan’s appointees at $250,000, although he and three other appointees making more than $200,000 are listed as contractors so they do not receive a city benefits package. Duggan’s salary is $166,500.
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Not apples to apples
Comparing the city of Detroit to the counties is challenging, in part, because of differences in the types of services provided. Detroit, for example, has a bus system and a fire department, services not replicated at the county level.
Duggan spokesman John Roach said the administration believes Detroiters are seeing progress and that it’s up to them to decide if the mayor’s team is providing value.
“The mayor has built a strong management team, made up of some of the best talent from around Detroit and the country, that has been delivering results in areas of city government that residents have not seen for years,” he said.
On the county side, the discrepancy in numbers has been attributed by Evans' staff and others to everything from Wayne County’s larger population — 1.8 million residents compared with 1.2 million in Oakland and 841,000 in Macomb — to the broader way Wayne County defines appointees per its charter.
“We suspect most, if not all, of Wayne County’s CEO appointments that do not work in the county executive’s office, have counterparts who are not counted as CEO appointees in Oakland and Macomb,” Evans spokesman James Canning said, noting that 21 of the 133 appointees are in the Wayne County Executive’s Office.
Oakland County, for instance, has a road commission, which is separate from county government, noted Bill Mullan, a spokesman for Oakland County's Patterson. The departments that handle roads in Wayne and Macomb counties fall under the county executive.
Canning also said the final Ficano appointee numbers had dropped at least in part because staffers began to leave after he lost election in the primary. Earlier that year, Ficano listed 15 more appointees with salaries costing $14 million, compared to $12.6 million in salaries when he left office. Canning estimated that almost 60% of Evans’ appointees were holdovers from the previous administration, and said all CEO appointees took a 5% pay reduction after Evans took office.
Regarding the specific appointee positions, Canning pointed to a county ordinance that lists exceptions from classified service for dozens of division directors and assistant division directors as well as managing attorneys and various confidential secretaries. The listing for executive branch division directors and assistant directors authorizes the CEO to make the appointments with the approval of the county commission.
Deputy County Executive Richard Kaufman said in a statement that residents are steadily regaining trust in county government because of results achieved under Evans’ leadership.
“County Executive Evans has assembled an innovative and highly qualified administrative team comprised of subject matter experts and support personnel. This team is dedicated to restoring the county’s financial stability, improving service delivery and leading a transformation of government that creates a better quality of life for families and businesses,” Kaufman said in the statement.
When asked about the numbers of appointees in both administrations, Ficano said that he does not want to engage in finger-pointing or give the impression there is a conflict with the Evans administration on the issue. But he did note that during the election campaign, when his appointees were a topic of debate, nobody was pointing to an ordinance as mandating a certain number of appointees.
“There’s a new administration and what they do defines themselves,” Ficano said.
Chris Roggero, a Wayne County roads division foreman and president of AFSCME Local 2057, said he was not surprised to learn that Evans’ appointee numbers were about the same as Ficano’s at the end of his term.
“If they’re about the same as before, that’s about what I would expect,” Roggero said, noting that he believes new administrations typically contend that they will reduce the number of appointees but tend to leave those numbers as they are once in office.
Wayne County Commission Chair Gary Woronchak, D-Dearborn, said he would need to review the numbers position by position before he could say whether he has any concerns about CEO staffing.
“But I do believe that the term ‘appointee’ has taken on an unfair connotation, conjuring an image of political patronage and operatives. In fact, lots of regular staff positions are appointees simply because they are at-will employees and not part of a bargaining unit,” he said.
Wayne State University Professor John Mogk, whose subjects include state and local government, said there can be legitimate reasons a CEO would prefer to handle hires as at-will appointees.
“It gives them a greater universe from which to pick skilled administrators,” Mogk said.
Executives can look outside an organization to select a hire rather than be limited to those within the ranks as happens with civil service workers. They also get flexibility in structuring incentives to attract the best people they can, Mogk said.
Laura Reese, director of the Global Urban Studies program and a political science professor at Michigan State University, said that it is also easier to fire an appointee because they serve at-will, and removing civil service employees requires officials to go through a formal process.
Hiring staff as appointees can be based on politics, but the process can offer some positive aspects, she said.
“It does allow you to hire a crony or pay back a political debt, but it also allows you to hire the person with the best qualifications to fit your needs,” she said.
How a government was formed could also influence the number of appointees, according to Mullan, Patterson's spokesman. He noted that Oakland County's executive form of government was created by an act of the state Legislature, whereas Wayne and Macomb’s were formed by charter. He said that all non-appointee positions fall under Oakland County’s Merit System, which is a version of civil service.
“When it comes to his appointees, County Executive Patterson has always been about assembling the best team in county government. He looks at an individual’s qualifications and whether she or he can create innovation in county government. The results make it clear that the current size of the administration is effective at overseeing county functions: our budget is balanced through 2021, we've held a AAA bond rating since 1998, and Oakland County has reached 'full employment,'" Mullan said.
Ralph (Skip) Maccarone, who was executive director of Macomb County’s charter commission, said Macomb looked at other counties, including Wayne and Oakland and their number of appointees, in devising its charter, which was approved by voters in 2009, and established an executive form of government. Wayne County’s charter was approved in 1981 and has been amended numerous times since.
When asked why there were limits to the number of executive appointees in Macomb County, Maccarone said it was considered “a best practice.”
“Macomb, by its nature, is fairly conservative in terms of their approach to everything,” he said.
In Macomb, a few additional positions are listed in the executive’s office — a public information officer, a project coordinator and administrative secretary — and the county also has a chief animal control officer, but those positions are not considered appointees.
“The Macomb County charter is very specific and is very limited compared to surrounding counties as to who and how many appointees the executive can have,” said Deputy County Executive Mark Deldin.
Hackel, who noted that he does not have a security detail or driver, said he looks to what’s laid out in the charter, “what’s necessary and what’s affordable. I’ve not had a problem with it. Are people doing more with less? Yes. Can you always use more? Absolutely, so can the court and the clerk and deputies for the sheriff.”
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence. Staff writer Joe Guillen contributed to this report.
