Managing state investments is a bit like being a Big Ten football coach. The job-holders are big men on campus, salary-wise.
Paul Egan has eyebrow-raising data in the Free Press:
The State of Michigan quietly increased the salaries of its top investment officials in the Treasury Department by more than 80% this year, saying it was too difficult to attract and keep qualified people under the former pay rates.
Jon Braeutigam, the state’s chief investment officer, got a 90% pay raise to $333,000 a year from $175,000, department spokesman Terry Stanton confirmed Friday.
Treasury’s two senior directors of investment — Robert Brackenbury and Greg Parker — received 82% pay increases, boosting them from $128,000 to $233,000 a year. . . .
The increases appear to make Braeutigam the highest-paid official in state government. Two Snyder appointees — Budget Director John Nixon and Michigan Economic Development Corp. CEO Mike Finney — both were hired in at $250,000 a year. . .
In contrast, Rick Snyder gets $159,300 as governor -- not that he's pinched.
Fourteen others in the investment office also got salary bumps. The moves overall "are proving controversial," Egan writes, "because Snyder and state employee unions are at an impasse in budget negotiations in which the state has reportedly sought concessions on employee benefits."
He quotes Ray Holman, legislative liaison for UAW Local 6000, the largest state employee union:
“When you run those big salaries and big pay increases, it doesn’t sit well when you talk about the state workforce that has made significant concessions over the last decade."
Egan promotes his link with this comment on Facebook: "How big was your last pay raise?"
