Detroit thread. Post Kwame, Monica, and $1 houses here.

[Darth Wagtaros]

No.

I've never gotten the fried chicken and waffle thing. Do they put syrup on it?

[garbon]

No.

I've never gotten the fried chicken and waffle thing.

Yeah me neither. At least not to the extent that I'd order it myself. Though when I was in Portland this one brunch place had it and it looked rather tasty.

[Phillip V]

My current resident state of North Carolina enacted a budget bill today that eliminates teacher tenure and gets rid of the automatic pay increase teachers receive for earning a master's degree.

[garbon]

And you're in North Carolina...

[MadImmortalMan]

No.

I've never gotten the fried chicken and waffle thing.

Yeah me neither. At least not to the extent that I'd order it myself. Though when I was in Portland this one brunch place had it and it looked rather tasty.

I had it at Bouchon in Vegas and it was wonderful.

[garbon]

I had soft shell crab tempura or something like that in Vegas. I was not ready to have something that looked like a fried spider. But then I'd paid 20 bucks for it alone and was unemployed so I wolfed it down.

[CountDeMoney]

My current resident state of North Carolina enacted a budget bill today that eliminates teacher tenure and gets rid of the automatic pay increase teachers receive for earning a master's degree.

Awesome.  Because if North Carolina's school system need anything, it's additional disincentives to make the profession as unattractive as possible as a career path.

[citizen k]

Because if North Carolina's school system need anything, it's additional disincentives to make the profession as unattractive as possible as a career path.

It's not a career path, it's a "passion". 

[Savonarola]

Records show Ficano pensions costly for Wayne County
Christine MacDonald
The Detroit News

Detroit — Matt Schenk could soon get a pension worth nearly $97,000 a year as even though he's only 41 and spent just 8½ years as a top aide of Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano.

The county says his early retirement — and others like it — saved taxpayers money. But the deal won't be so sweet for the county's struggling pension system, which is one of the worst-funded in the nation at less than 50 percent.

Schenk's early retirement incentives alone could cost the system anywhere from $816,000 to $1.7 million, depending on market conditions, according to records obtained by The Detroit News that for the first time show the individual prices of Ficano's controversial early retirement incentives.

The deals went out to about 40 Ficano appointees about two years ago, but the Wayne County Employees Retirement System has just in the past year started to estimate the individual early retirement costs for a handful of staffers Ficano allowed to stay past the buyout's deadline.

Just the early retirement incentives alone for Schenk and seven other former appointees reviewed could cost the pension system up to an extra $4.7 million combined, according to the actuaries. The price for the rest of the 30-plus recipients is likely several times more than that, but it hasn't been calculated.

"How did you ever think the deals would really save you money?" said former county auditor general Brendan Dunleavy. "It shows how folks who should have been watching the county coffers were busy thinking of ways of taking money out of the coffers."

Schenk's $97,000 pension is so lucrative that it exceeds Internal Revenue Service limits for retirees his age by more than $28,000 a year, according to an analysis done by Wayne County pension actuaries. A separate account funded by the county likely will need to pay the difference.

On Monday, pension board members delayed any action until August on the former Ficano chief of staff's pension — a payout which could reach at least $3.5 million if he lives into his 70s. The average county retiree, in contrast, had an annual pension of $23,145 a year in 2011.

The actuarial studies looked only at the cost of the retirement sweeteners and don't factor in additional health care costs from an early out. Total pension payouts are expected to be much more, depending on how long retirees live and if they assigned their benefits to spouses when they die.

Deals strained system

Ficano's staff defend the buyouts, saying they still saved money cutting nearly $2.8 million in payroll in 2011 because he didn't fill about 20 positions and those that were filled were at lower salaries. The buyouts helped trim Ficano's ranks of appointees to 174 today from 240 in 2010.

His spokeswoman, June West, said poor investments, not retirement deals, caused the system to be $800 million underfunded. She cited the system's most recent financial report, which concluded that most of its $114 million in losses in 2011 were from "investment performance."

"They are blowing smoke out there," West said. "It's virtually the entire loss ... which Bob Ficano has no control over.

"(The buyouts) helped the county executive reduce his at-will payroll. ... You look at any major corporation in the country .... this is a common way of reducing the workforce and payroll."

But pension board members have argued they've made recent investment gains and that Ficano's deals are to blame. Retirees like Tyrone Carter worry Detroit's pension problems could spread to Wayne County.

"Offering a platinum retirement to people who haven't worked the 20-25 years ... hurts the system," said Carter, a former Wayne County Sheriff's lieutenant. "Who is going to suffer? The workers. If you look at what's happening in Detroit, we are next."

Ficano controls the pension benefits offered and the board administers them.

Among the most expensive deals were for those who retired younger than 50.

That includes Belleville Mayor Kerreen Conley, who was just 45 when she retired last year after 12 years as the county's facilities management director. Her pension will pay her about $73,000 per year, but will cost the pension system another $552,000 because she left early, according to actuaries. Conley was elected Belleville mayor in 2011.

Lavonda Jackson, Ficano's former deputy director of environmental services, retired at 44 after 13 years to a $72,000 yearly pension, a deal that will cost the system nearly $600,000.

Sweeteners add to costs

The 2011 buyout waived age rules that required retirees be at least 55, allowed them to buy — at discount — as many as six of 20 years of service they needed to retire and based pension payouts on their best three salary years. Participants also could buy years they worked at other municipalities.

The actuaries studied the cost of those sweeteners.

Buying years helped former Taylor Mayor Cameron Priebe, who was an assistant county CEO, retire with nearly a $59,000-a-year pension after roughly 11 years of county service. His deal cost the system nearly $377,000.

The deal comes atop a $41,700 annual pension he draws from the city of Taylor after working there 27 years, mainly with the police and then as mayor, according to city records.

Schenk is also expected to purchase years he was with the city of Detroit.

Other early retirement costs for Ficano's aides, according to the actuaries, include:

■Tim Taylor, the county's former personnel director. He retired after 27 years to a $118,000 pension at a cost of about $433,000. He crafted the deal and was the only staffer to be able to use a lump-sum payout of 24 weeks' pay — an estimated $60,000 — to help boost his final pension from $82,800 a year to $118,000 per year.

■James Buford, former county director of homeland security. He retired after 28 years to a $111,000-a-year pension for the first 10 years of his retirement. After that, it will drop to about $42,000 a year. His buyout cost the system about $603,000.

It's not clear how much time the retirees bought in part because those costs were redacted by pension officials in the records. The actuaries' $4.7 million estimate, though, takes into account money — often hundreds of thousands of dollars — that employees paid to buy more years. It appears from records that Schenk will put nearly $438,000 into the system as a part of his deal.

Calls and emails to the former appointees, including Schenk, weren't returned. Attorney Ed Plato, who represented some of them, stressed in an email the former appointees paid in to take the deal.

"Those employees who did retire early had to pay substantial sums of money into the system to purchase additional years of service," Plato wrote. He successfully sued Ficano on behalf of about 15 aides whose early-out deals were rescinded amid a 2011 scandal over former economic development chief Turkia Mullin's $200,000 severance.

Reform may be ahead

Although the total costs of the buyouts haven't been calculated, actuaries in 2011 estimated they would cost the pension system about $44.6 million if 120 appointees took the deals. About half did, not all of whom retired.

Dunleavy and other critics said the cost of the buyouts is outrageous since the system appears to be in worse shape than pension systems in Detroit. Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has said the city's general retirement system funding levels may be as low as 65 percent.

The early retirement deals "put the system in jeopardy," said Bob Murphy, a former pension board member. "Those people haven't earned it. It's scamming the system."

The health of the pension system has become a bigger problem for Ficano. A court ruled in May the county must repay $32 million that Ficano redirected from a pension fund used to pay bonuses to retirees.

Ficano and county commissioners in 2011 made the county's annual payment to the system by dipping into a fund for the "13th check" — an annual extra payment retirees have received since 1986 instead of cost-of-living increases. Ficano is appealing the May ruling to the state Supreme Court.

Ficano has taken steps in the past few months to reform pensions, cutting benefits to some 270 appointees' defined benefit and contribution plans that are expected to save up to $800,000 per year. And his staff points out the county hasn't borrowed money to make pension payments, unlike Detroit.

This year, the county already must set aside $70 million to fully fund the retirement system, a 20 percent increase from last year.


From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130729/METRO01/307290008#ixzz2aSIWkvhb

Wayne County hasn't gotten much press until recently; largely because Detroit was in so much worse shape.  Wayne, though, operates largely on the same sort of system as Detroit (Kwame's father was on the County board.)   A couple scandals (the jail that they're $150 million over budget on and still haven't completed and Turkia Mullin's sweetheart deal mentioned in the article) are starting to bring focus that Wayne County is heading for the same sort of budget problems as Detroit. 

[derspiess]

No.

I've never gotten the fried chicken and waffle thing. Do they put syrup on it?

At the one place I've had it, they served syrup and hot sauce on the side.  Mind you, this was not a black restaurant, per se, but a Belgian restaurant located in a gentrified part of Over-the-Rhine.

[Savonarola]

And it's one last desperate plea before 20 long years in the slammer:

Kwame Kilpatrick makes another pitch for new trial, blames lawyer for guilty verdict
11:48 AM, July 29, 2013   | 
By Tresa Baldas

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father, Bernard Kilpatrick, and his longtime contractor friend Bobby Ferguson were convicted in U.S. District Court in Detroit. They were accused in a conspiracy to enrich themselves by rigging City of Detroit contracts through the mayor's office. Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted on 24 of 30 counts, Ferguson was found guilty on nine of 11 counts and Bernard Kilpatrick was convicted on one of four counts. A fourth defendant, former water department director Victor Mercado, pleaded guilty to conspiracy during the trial and awaits sentencing.

Just five weeks away from sentencing, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is asking for a new trial again, using the same argument he's made several times before: He was forced to use a lawyer he didn't want.

In a court filing Friday, Kilpatrick's defense attorney Harold Gurewitz argued that the court made a mistake last August when it denied Kilpatrick's request for a new lawyer. The request came right before the public corruption trial was about to start, with Kilpatrick claiming that he had lost confidence in his longtime attorney, James Thomas.

Gurewitz argues there were two reasons the judge should have honored Kilpatrick's request: One, Kilpatrick and his lawyer "were burdened with irreconcilable conflicts of interest," and two, the attorney-client relationship had been damaged.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds heard all that from Kilpatrick in court last year, but denied his request. She noted that when Kilpatrick ran out of money and couldn't afford a lawyer, he requested Thomas, so he got him. Edmunds also found that Thomas had been a good and effective lawyer for Kilpatrick.

Thomas represented Kilpatrick throughout the six-month trial, which ended with Kilpatrick getting convicted in March of racketeering, extortion, bribery and fraud. He will be sentenced Sept. 3 and faces 20-plus years in prison.

Two months after the guilty verdict, Kilpatrick officially dumped Thomas, telling Edmunds that "a grave error" occurred in his case and that he needed a new lawyer. He said that Thomas did not communicate with him properly or include him in the defense strategy during his racketeering trial.

"I believe that I was denied my right to counsel," Kilpatrick told Edmunds, who ultimately agreed to give him a new attorney.

Thomas agreed that it was time for him to step down.

Edmunds appointed Gurewitz to handle Kilpatrick's case.

Meanwhile, Kilpatrick's father and co-defendant, Bernard Kilpatrick, also wants his guilty verdict overturned. In a filing Friday, Kilpatrick's lawyer John Shea argued that there was not enough evidence to prove that his client knew his 2005 tax return was false. Bernard Kilpatrick was convicted on a single count of filing a false tax return and faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced in September. He was acquitted on two other tax charges and cleared of the most serious charge, racketeering, because the jury was deadlocked on that count.

[Savonarola]

While many whine about their pension being cut, some city workers are showing initiative:

Detroit Police chief to discuss arrests of two sergeants today

9:00 AM, July 29, 2013   | 

By Tammy Stables Battaglia and Elisha Anderson

Detroit Free Press Staff Writers


Detroit's police chief is scheduled to discuss today the arrest of sergeants from police departments in Detroit and St. Clair Shores in connection with an armed robbery.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig is expected to provide preliminary details at a 3 p.m. press conference at the Detroit Public Safety Headquarters, Sgt. Eren Stephens said in a release issued today. She said an arrest was made Saturday, but declined to discuss details.

A source familiar with the investigation said at least two men claimed they were assaulted and robbed by police officers on July 21 at a Citgo gas station on French near I-94. The Detroit police sergeant is a 20-year veteran.

St. Clair Shores Police Chief Michael Walleman has yet to comment on the investigation.

"The St. Clair Shores Police Department is aware of the allegation that has been made in Detroit," said a release issued today by the department. "This is part of an ongoing investigation and we are still receiving information. Discussing the matter now would be premature."

The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office expects to receive a warrant request from the Detroit Police Department sometime today, spokeswoman Maria Miller said in an e-mail this morning. She said she did not know where or if the officers were in custody and referred questions to police.

It's also good to see different districts working together like that.

[Phillip V]

[quoteRecords show Ficano pensions costly for Wayne County
Christine MacDonald
The Detroit News

Detroit — Matt Schenk could soon get a pension worth nearly $97,000 a year as even though he's only 41 and spent just 8½ years as a top aide of Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano.

The county says his early retirement — and others like it — saved taxpayers money. But the deal won't be so sweet for the county's struggling pension system, which is one of the worst-funded in the nation at less than 50 percent.

I need to go work in county/city government.

[derspiess]

My current resident state of North Carolina enacted a budget bill today that eliminates teacher tenure and gets rid of the automatic pay increase teachers receive for earning a master's degree.

Awesome.  Because if North Carolina's school system need anything, it's additional disincentives to make the profession as unattractive as possible as a career path.

How about some incentive for them to do a good job?  Would you be in favor of that, smart guy?

[CountDeMoney]

Performance evaluation is already embedded in the system, teacher-hating puddytat. 
Doing things like eliminating incentives in achieving higher levels of professional accomplishment such as education, like other professions, is not the same.