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City of Lansing 2021 Payroll

Introduction

The following information comes from a report prepared by the City's internal auditor. It provides detail on all payments made to employees and retirees in 2021.

The Internal Auditor report has 3076 lines of data (records). 1766 are for retirees, 1018 are for employees who received wages in 2021 (above), 270 are for TEA LEADER/TEA SPORTS OFFICIALs, and 8 are for former employees who took a refund of their retirement accounts. If an employee retired during 2021, he has both an active employee record and a retiree record.

A note at the top of the report says that if the employee has multiple positions in calendar year, they will have more than one row of data with the total duplicated in amount and not prorated between positions. The only employees I can see who have multiple positions are the TEA LEADER/TEA SPORTS OFFICIAL employees.

Of the 1766 retiree records, 68 have "separation" dates, which I am assuming is the date of death. Most of those dates are in 2021 with a few in late 2020 and early 2022.

That leaves 1698 retirees who are still receiving pensions. The same column headings used for active employees were also used for retirees, which is kind of confusing. "Position" is really the system the person retired from - either Police and Fire (P&F) or the Employees Retirement System (ERS). "Hire Date" seems to be the 1st of the month in which the person retired. "Hourly Wage" seems to have no meaning at all for retirees. And "Regular Pay" is the total of pension payments received in 2021. "Total" seems to the same as "Regular Pay" except when "Miscellaneous" is present.

How this information was obtained

Early in 2022, I sent a FOIA request asking for the following payroll information for all City of Lansing employees who had earnings in 2021:

Name

Department

Position/job title

Union affiliation/bargaining unit

Salary/hourly rate

Regular wages

Overtime wages

Miscellaneous wages

Final leave payment

Total wages for 2021

Hire date

Termination date

I said I'd like the information in electronic (digital) form and in a single file.

On March 9, my request was denied because no document that contained all of that information was found and "the City is not required to create a compilation of information for a new public record." I appealed to Adam Hussain, the City Council president, pointing out that the City had managed to provide me the payroll information for 2010 in 2011 and for 2016 in 2017. He granted my appeal in a March 21 letter saying they recently discovered a report done by the City's Internal Auditor that seemed to provide the information I requested. A PDF copy of the report was attached (to his emailed letter) and a hard copy was mailed - twenty-six 11" by 17" sheets printed on both sides. I asked if they could send me the file from which the report was produced, and they did. A copy of that file - an Excel file - as received is here. Notes at the top of the report say that

1. Position and Actual Hourly Wage may be blank when a Separation Date is present.

2. If the employee has multiple positions in calendar year, they will have more than one row of data with the total duplicated in amount and not prorated between positions.

3. Buy Out Pay may or may not be present on all employees that have Separation Date due to the fact some employees did not receive any Buy Out Pay.

If you see any errors or have any questions, email me at stevenrharry@gmail.com or call or text me at 517-730-2638.