A six-paragraph letter to Bob Ficano reminds the Wayne County executive about a state law he apparently violated, John Wisely reports in the Free Press.
Gerard Grysko of the Wayne County Employee Retirement System informed Ficano last month that the board cannot legally pay [retirement] benefits to some appointees because their deals violate a law requiring local government officials to know the cost of a benefit change before adopting it.
Because Ficano allowed certain employees to defer taking a January 2011 deal, those appointees accrued more service time, increasing the cost of their deals, Grysko said. Not knowing those costs in advance violated the law, he said.
The paper posts a copy of the two-page letter from the system's deputy director.
Wisely, who refers to "sweetheart retirement deals, speaks with the county's chief financial officer, Carla Sledge.
She says officials calculated that the overall buyout offer for appointees would save $2.5 million annually. Sledge acknowledges individual payouts climbed, but says increases were modest.
