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What are "miscellaneous"
payments?
October 20, 2011
In the report of 2010 earnings I got
from the City, one of the columns is "miscellaneous". It is a
component of total earnings, along with wages, overtime and final
leave payments. To get an idea of what sort of payments go into the
miscellaneous column, I selected 4 employees and asked for the
breakdown. Here is the City's response:
In his 9/19/2011 cover letter,
Assistant City Attorney Donald Kulhanek explained the redactions:
I have exempted and redacted
information which reflects the personal financial choices of
certain employees. The matters redacted and described here are
determined to meet the two pronged exemption test established by
the Michigan Supreme Court, i.e. the information is personal in
nature and its disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted
invasion of the individual's policy. I find that the public
interest in disclosure is outweighed by the public interest in
non-disclosure, for the reason these personal financial choices
don't meet the core purpose of FOIA by shedding insight on the
inner workings of government.
Nevertheless, we do know from
benefit descriptions and union contracts provided by the City that
employees receive $1800 a year for opting out of health insurance.
We also know how longevity payments are awarded:
|
Continuous Service |
Annual Bonus |
Max amount |
|
5 or more and less than 10 years |
2% of
annual
wage (up to $20,000) |
$400 |
|
10 or more and less than 15 years |
4% of annual wage (up to $20,000) |
$800 |
|
15 or more and less than 20 years |
6% of annual wage (up to $20,000) |
$1200 |
|
20 or more and less than 25 years |
8% of annual wage (up to $20,000) |
$1600 |
|
25 or
more years (FOP Supervisory only) |
10%
of annual wage (up to $20,000) |
$2000 |
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