Since 2016 County Administrator Pay Has Doubled and Commissioners’ Pay Has Risen 115 Percent

by P.D. Lesko

As the saying goes: One hand washes the other. In the case of County Administrator Greg Dill and the Washtenaw County Commissioners, they have worked together to more than double their own pay since Dill was hired in 2016. During the same time, raises for other county employees have not kept up with the cost of inflation and don’t provide enough money to cover the cost of living in Washtenaw County, according to comments made by several county employees at the Commissioners’ July 12 meeting.

At the July 12 meeting of the Washtenaw County Commissioners, in a split vote County Commissioners awarded County Administrator Greg Dill a 30 percent raise, putting his annual salary over $300,000 per year, plus perks (paid cell phone, i.e.) and benefits. It’s a move that some county employees suggested was related to pension spiking for Dill. County pensions are calculated using the final three years of compensation.

When Dill was hired as administrator in 2016, his salary was $155,000.

Dill’s new 3-year contract does not automatically renew annually. Rather, the contract allows Dill to renegotiate the terms of his contract annually. In the initial version of the contract bargained by a small group of County Commissioners, if a new contract were not offered to Dill after the three years, Dill would have received a golden parachute worth up to $1 million. If Dill had left at anytime during his contract, he would have collected a golden parachute. A group of County Commissioners bargained a contract that virtually guaranteed the Administrator an enormous payout even if he’d decided to leave one week after the contract was enacted.

In the initial version of the contract, had Dill chosen to resign his position anytime during his contract, he would have received remaining salary, severance compensation, including sick and vacation days accrued.

One County Commissioner, Yousef Rabhi, was persistent in his efforts to reign in what he said were “imprudent” terms of both the contracts for Greg Dill and Corporation Counsel Michelle Billard. In the end, at Rabhi’s urging Commissioners agreed to change the termination language that would have given Dill huge golden parachute in virtually any circumstance of termination.

County employees packed the chambers and held up signs mocking the raise for Dill. Comments submitted to the Commissioners prior to the meeting via email were almost unanimous in lambasting Dill as undeserving of the more than 30 percent raise. County residents and county employees sent in comments via email. Those comments were included in the commissioners’ agenda packet.

Jade Miller, a Washtenaw County resident and an employee of the County said in a written comment to the Board of Commissioners, “I am struggling to understand why Greg Dill will be getting an increase to his pay that is more than I make in a year….I am unable to live and support my daughter on what the county is paying me as the cost of living in Washtenaw County is so high. If Greg can get over a 30% increase to his pay, why cannot all county employees?”

Caroline Sanders represents Pittsfield Township, District 4. During the debate about whether to tighten up the termination language in the contracts for Dill and Billard, Sanders called both employees “at willable.”

Sanders went on to say that at will employees should not be subject to termination only because they’ve “fallen out of favor,” or because “we might have some commissioners who don’t like how they’re doing their job. I don’t believe you just get to terminate people.”

Sanders’s comments betrayed a lack of understanding of Michigan labor law. At will employees, under Michigan law, may be terminated for virtually any reason with few exceptions.

On Mar. 24, 2023, Gov. Whitmer signed a Bill into law that reimplemented right-to-work for Michigan’s private sector employees. Michigan law still recognizes at will employment.

District 10 Ann Arbor Commissioners Katie Scott justified her yes vote on the pay hike for Dill and the one-sided employment contract by saying Dill “never takes vacations.” Scott went on to say that Dill had called her “from the golf course,” and “from the gym.”

An examination of one year of Dill’s County provided cell phone records showed that Commissioner Scott rarely speaks to the County Administrator. Records show that Dill, for the most part, communicates by phone with Ann Arbor District 7 Commissioner Andy LaBarre. In the course of a year, the phone records showed, there were several County Commissioners whom Dill had never called.

District 6 Ypsilanti County Commissioner Annie Somerville spoke after Scott and began her comments by observing that Dill had called while he was on vacation.

Dill’s contract also decreased the Administrator’s worker-to-CEO pay ratio from 8x to 7.5x the hourly pay of the lowest paid county worker. In comparison, when ice cream duo Ben and Jerry launched their Vermont ice cream business, they set the CEO-to-worker pay ratio at 5x.

Commissioner Andy LaBarre argued that the ratio was an incentive to Dill to raise the pay of the lowest paid workers in his employ. LaBarre called the wage gap between the highest and lowest paid employees in the county, “a management tool, an incentive.”

County workers disagreed with LaBarre’s characterization.

Pittsfield Twp. resident Katherine Hensley, in a written comment included in the Commissioners’ Agenda Packet said, “I am writing to urge the commissioners to not approve [a] raise for the county administrator. I understand wanting to retain the administrator, but is the county almost not concerned with retaining other employees? I am particularly frustrated at the reasoning for this increase.”

Commissioner LaBarre justified the huge raise for the Administrator with comments that overlooked all of the scandals in which Dill has been embroiled during the past several years. Dill, according to LaBarre, has a record of excellence going back to 2009.

• In 2021, The Ann Arbor Independent uncovered widespread mismanagement at SafeHouse Center, the domestic violence shelter. The mismanagement put women and children at risk. Dill, Vice President of the Board of SafeHouse at the time, was directly responsible for the shelter turning away women and children in need of safety, services and protection. SafeHouse Center, according to local domestic violence advocates, is still taking millions in public money and donations while turning away battered women who seek shelter there. Dill is presently the Chair of the Board at SafeHouse.

• More recently, The Ann Arbor Independent asked six people to call the Community Mental Health crisis hotline with instructions to ask for services, including mental health treatment. All six were denied services. In addition, A2Indy obtained public records that showed CMH Dir. Trish Cortes has been using Mental Health Millage money to pay for PR, marketing consultants paid as much as $260 per hour, and paid news coverage to convince county residents that CMH has expanded services.

Greg Dill supervises the Dir. of Community Mental Health Trish Cortes.

Community Mental Health worker Kellie Cripe, in her July 12, 2023 meeting comment to the Board of Commissioners talked about the “broken” CMH system. Cripe said in her written comment to the County Commissioners, “I am perplexed why the county administrator thinks he deserves to make $300K a year–while I make $50K. The CMH system in this county is broken and continues to shatter under the weight of the greed and mismanagement of the people in charge of running and holding the county accountable.”

• In Jan. 2023, Greg Dill implicated himself and the entire Board of Commissioners seated in July 2022 in a Detroit News interview. Dill told reporter George Hunter that both Dill and all of the County Commissioners knew a proposal that resulted in a $1.2 million grant to a non-profit controlled by a child sex offender and a murderer on parole contained numerous fabrications and falsehoods.

While LaBarre sang Dill’s praises back to 2009 when Dill worked for the County Sheriff’s Dept., LaBarre did not mention Dill’s stint with the Oak Park, MI school district. Between 2005-2008, Dill was the District’s chief of staff. In 2008, he was forced to resign.

Dill had a private shower facility and luxury gym built at the Oak Park Preparatory Academy, according to The Detroit News.

Dill was placed on paid administrative leave and was investigated by police for possible misuse of public funds. The private luxury gym included showers, tile floors, cherry cabinets, and a big screen television. At the time, Dill claimed that some of the items were added without his knowledge.

Within the same resolution to raise Dill’s pay was a vote to raise the pay of the Washtenaw County Commissioners and a resolution outlining the distribution of ARPA funds meant to compensate frontline workers who interfaced with the public during the pandemic. Dill’s recommendation was that the hazard pay funds should be allocated based on an employee’s “tenure with the County.” Dill proposed that all employees hired in 2020 receive Workforce Stabilization payments of $8,000. Employees hired in 2021, according to Dill’s proposal, would receive payment “not to exceed $4,000” and employees hired in 2022 “are eligible for an amount not to exceed $2,400.”

The lopsided division of the Workforce Stabilization pay between 200 employees in the Sheriff’s Dept. and 600 other county employees also elicited multiple comments. Dill recommended that the County Commissioners split $3 million in Workforce Stabilization money by giving half to the Sheriff for 200 of his employees and the other half of the Workforce Stabilization money to among 600 other county employees.

Kevin Butler lives in Chelsea. He submitted a written comment in which he said, “When will this administration respect its labor force and offer [pay] parity?”

County employee Barbara Brookens lives in Ann Arbor Twp. In her written comment she asked “When will the BOC recognize WCCMH employees’ worth? ….[You] continually ignore our please [sic] for keeping highly trained employees in their [CMH] jobs…Enough is enough. Fair Wages Now!”

Likewise, CMH nurse Barbara Redden took issue with Dill’s recommendation on how to distribute $3 million in Workforce Stabilization money. “While much of admin was at home ‘administrating,’ the rest of us were actually out there doing the work, having the exposure, and getting sick. Per usual, the greed of admin and lack of respect and appreciation for frontline workers is appalling.”

Dill’s reliance on tenure of service meant that all County employees would qualify. This resolution triggered a debate among the Commissioners. Some wanted to cap the maximum salary a County employee could earn and still qualify for the Workforce Stabilization payments. Chair of the County Board Justin Hodge voted against a cap. Hodge expressed deep concerns about what a $150,000 cap would do to an employee earning $153,000.

Commissioner Katie Scott proposed a cap of $182,000.

Commissioner Annie Somerville argued that highly paid employees were already well compensated and that the bonus money would better benefit county employees earning less than $100,000. Somerville went on to vote to cap the pay of County employees eligible for the one-time bonus payments at $150,000.

Dozens of the mostly highly-paid employees in the County will be given the Workforce Stabilization payments.

County Administrator Greg Dill argued against the cap, because a cap would adversely impact “some CMH physicians.” Dill also claimed that during the pandemic, “As you all likely know, we were the only local unit of government that was operating during the pandemic.”

Between March 2020 and March 2023, every local government in Washtenaw County operated. It’s unclear why Dill was unaware that local governments including Ann Arbor, Saline, Chelsea, Manchester, Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor Township continued to provide services.

While Dill’s proposed pay raise pushes his compensation over $300,000, at the July 12 meeting the County Administrator proposed Commissioners vote to direct the “County negotiating team to at least meet the basic needs as residents…and increase the hourly rate of pay for the lowest paid, regular employee to be no less than $20.50.”

This is a poverty wage for an individual with a child living in Washtenaw County. It is also a poverty wage for a couple working and living in Washtenaw County.

In 2021, the Board of Commissioners passed a resolution that no full-time Washtenaw County worker would be paid less than $15 per hour. The $20.50 bump is a 35 percent increase.

The Commissioners voted unanimously to raise the Sheriff’s salary to $170,667, and to raise the pay of the County Prosecutor, Treasurer, Water Resources Commissioner to $160,000 each. When Dill was hired in 2016, the Sheriff’s salary was $122,869 as was the salary of the County Prosecutor. The Treasurer and Water Resources Commissioner (women) earned $104,755.

In 2016, County Commissioners earned $15,911 for their part-time jobs. On July 12, the Commissioners voted to increase their own salaries to $36,315.

Since 2016, the County Administrator has recommended increasing pay for County Commissioners by 115 percent. During the same period, the County Commissioners have hiked the County Administrator’s pay over 100 percent.

Commissioner Rabhi, and Shannon Beeman who represents District 3, voted against raising their own salaries. Neither said they have plans to give the additional funds to charity.