In Detroit city government, let them eat cake

A sense of timing is a wonderful thing, whether in politics or comedy. The timing of the pitch for a pay raise for Detroit’s elected officials is almost funny for its obliviousness.

The lobbying by City Council President Brenda Jones and city clerk Janice Winfrey came on the same week that cuts to retiree pensions kicked in as part of the bankruptcy settlement. Roughly 12,000 city of Detroit retirees saw their monthly benefit checks cut by 4.5 percent.

These retirees also lost much of their health care benefits to the bankruptcy process.

What Jones and Winfrey are saying is, “Let them eat cake,” setting themselves up as above the sacrifice required of others whose livelihoods come from the city’s coffers.

The pair asked the Detroit Elected Officials Compensation Commission to recommend a pay raise, arguing they are worth more than the salaries they’re receiving.

“My days normally exceed 12 hours,” Jones, who makes just shy of $80,000 a year, was quoted as saying. “Our roles as council members, my role as council president, has changed tremendously” because of the bankrutpcy.

Winfrey chimed in that, “I am severely underpaid” at about $73,000 a year.

Winfrey has lots of company in that sentiment among the ranks of city employees. Like the elected officials, rank and file city employees have agreed to pay cuts over the years. City Council saw its pay drop 10 percent in 2010 as part of a general payroll tightening aimed at averting the financial collapse.

The result of a decade or more of financial hardship is that the wages of most employees of the city have not kept pace with their peers. But most don’t have the luxury of getting the cuts restored simply by petitioning a commission. They’ll have to win them back at the bargaining table, when and if the city’s finances allow.

Winfrey, Jones and the other elected officials knew the pay levels for their offices when they sought them, and must have understood the inability of the city to do much about salaries.

Mayor Mike Duggan, in new labor contracts signed last fall, did restore some of the pay of police and firefighters, which had fallen to among the lowest paid in the region, despite the dangers and pressures of the job.

That should be the priority — providing fair compensation for workers in a competitive market.

Council members and other elected officials don’t fall into that category. When a seat on the council came open last fall, 135 people applied for the post, fully knowing what the job paid.

The compensation commission hasn’t signaled what it intends to do with the pay request.

But it should keep in mind the message a pay hike for elected officials would send just three months after Detroit emerged from bankruptcy, and while pensioners are still adjusting to the pain of benefit cuts.

Detroit’s long-term financial stability remains uncertain. Bankruptcy has provided some budget breathing room for the next two years, but after that revenues are expected to tighten unless there is a surge in tax payments.

The commission should wait to measure the city’s ability to pay for salary hikes before acting on the request from Jones and Winfrey.