Deadbeat Commissioners Owe Taxpayers Thousands for Over-Spending on Travel, Hotels and Conferences

by P.D. Lesko

In Jan. 2024, Washtenaw County Commissioners voted to adopt new Board of Commissioner Rules and Regulations. Among those rules and regulations is Section X. Commissioner Optional Remuneration. This $7,000 pot of money made available to each commissioner “shall be kept current by County Administration.” On the County’s website, as of Mar. 11, 2024, the Commissioners’ Flex Spending records had last been made public in 2021, a violation of the Board’s newly-adopted 2024 rules and regulations.

After a Freedom of Information Act request from The Ann Arbor Independent, County Administration added the 2023 Flex Spending records, but not the 2022 or 2024 records. The 2023 records show that as of Aug./Sept. 2023, Commissioners Caroline Sanders (District 4) and Crystal Lyte (District 2) had spent thousands of dollars in excess of their $7,000 Flex Spending limit. As of Dec. 31, 2023 the two elected officials had not paid back the County.

Conversely, in all of 2023, Ann Arbor County Commissioner Katie Scott spent none of the money from her Flex Spending account. Likewise, Commissioner Jason Maciejewski spent none of the $7,000 made available to him in 2023. County records showed that in 2021, Scott and Maciejewski had used none of their Flex Spending money. In 2021, the year she was elected, Caroline Sanders led spending that year using $4,770.30 of her $7,000. In 2021, Sanders was forced to repay $369.55 to the County for unauthorized hotel charges.

In 2022, four new County Commissioners were elected: Crystal Lyte, Annie Somerville, Justin Hodge and Yousef Rabhi.

In 2023, Lyte, Somerville and Hodge single-handedly increased Commissioner Flex spending by more than 50 percent when compared to 2021 Flex Spending data, according to County records. Likewise, the County’s racial equity officer’s spending between 2022 (when Somerville, Hodge and Lyte were elected) and 2023 hit $115,000, including taking almost monthly trips, spending on luxury hotels, thousands of dollars on Uber rides and Uber Eats and first-class plane travel.

A former County employee drew the newspaper’s attention to the 2024 Board of Commissioner Rules and Regulations requiring Sanders and Lyte to reimburse county taxpayers for the 2023 funds they spent in excess of their Flex Spending limit.

The tipster pointed out in an email, “The county administrator cannot transfer money to cover overages and commissioners are responsible for repaying excess spending.” The tipster continued, “Yes, [they] absolutely should pay for overspending…Chances are, they’ll say that another commissioner didn’t use all of their stipend, so it’s a wash. No. No it’s not. If [they] can’t manage to respect a very generous $7,000 budget and stay within County policy/board rules, how can we expect that [they] are competent enough to offer input in the county’s multi-million budget?”

Former Ann Arbor County Commissioner Conan Smith was forced to repay funds he’d spent in excess of his allotted annual County Commissioner expense account. In 2011-2012 when Smith was on the Board, Washtenaw County faced a $25 million deficit.

According to an Oct. 2023 White Paper County Administrator Greg Dill presented to the County Commissioners (but did not make public) in support of a 1.7 mill tax hike, Washtenaw County now faces $27.3 million in “revenue erosion.”

That didn’t stop Commissioners Somerville, Hodge, Lyte and Sanders from spending thousands on a junket to Mackinac Island to attend the 2023 Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce Mackinac Policy Conference.

Crystal Lyte was elected in 2022, recruited by Commissioner Caroline Sanders to run. In tracking over-spending and stays at luxury hotels, tickets to gala balls and other extravagant spending on the taxpayers’ dime, Sanders and Lyte frequently appear together at the public trough: they took the same almost $3,000 Metrocar ride from the County Building in Ann Arbor to Shepler’s dock in St. Ignace and back again for the Mackinac Conference in 2023; they enjoyed over $3,746 worth of food, drinks and dancing at the same Black and Gold Gala Ball put on by a chapter of a fraternity to which County Administrator Dill belongs; the two women also spent thousands of dollars attending the National Association of Counties conference, in Austin, TX.

In 2023, Lyte paid $3,700 to the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, $1,609 on a king bed suite at the Mission Point Resort and Lyte sat back and enjoyed an almost $3,000 ride in a Metrocar from the County Building to Shepler’s dock and back again.

She presently owes Washtenaw County $2,125.08 and as of Mar. 22, 2024 has not paid back the money.

Caroline Sanders is the Associate Dir. for Community Relations at EMU. Her pay is $88,195, according to university records. She was elected in 2021. In tracking over-spending and stays at luxury hotels, tickets to gala balls and other extravagant spending on the taxpayers’ dime, Caroline Sanders is the single biggest spender of Flex Spending funds on the County Board of Commissioners.

She took an almost $3,000 Metrocar ride to Shepler’s dock and back again for the Mackinac Conference in 2023; she enjoyed over $3,700 worth of dinner, drinks and dancing paid for by taxpayers at the Black and Gold Gala Ball put on by a chapter of a fraternity to which County Administrator Dill belongs; Sanders spent thousands of dollars attending the National Association of Counties conference, in Austin, TX.

In 2023, Sanders paid $3,700 to the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, $2,203 on a king bed suite at the Mission Point Resort and like her friend Crystal Lyte, sat back and enjoyed an almost $3,000 ride in a Metrocar from the County Building to Shepler’s dock in St. Ignace, MI and back again.

She presently owes Washtenaw County $3,979.63; as of Mar. 22, 2024 Sanders had not paid back the money.

Like Sanders, and Lyte, Commissioner Justin Hodge, a temporary lecturer at the University of Michigan, overspent his 2023 $7,000 Flex Spending account. In 2023, Hodge earned $114,190.60. After he was made aware that the newspaper was examining credit card spending by county staff and spending by County Commissions, on Mar. 22, 2024 he paid back $931 to bring his total 2023 Flex Spending to exactly $7,000.

It’s unclear why County Administrator Greg Dill had not sought reimbursement for the additional money which the Commissioners had taken for their own use in excess of their $7,000 allotted.

Commissioners Lyte and Sanders were asked why, over the past eight months, they had not reimbursed County taxpayers. They have not yet replied.