Benefit cutbacks expected for Detroit city workers and retirees will affect people across income levels, from clerks to past police chiefs -- including 23 pensioners getting more than $100,000 annually, The Detroit News reports.
Benny Napoleon's city pension is $111,520.
Robert Snell looks at high-end retirees who may not feel the pain and strain quite as sharply as those who served under them.
An elite group of 13 city retirees has collected more than $1 million each in pension payouts, including former police chiefs Benny Napoleon and Isaiah “Ike” McKinnon, and could lose the most money if Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr succeeds in slashing benefits during the city’s restructuring. . . .
Napoleon, who is running for mayor, receives a $111,520 pension a year in addition to his approximate $130,000 salary as Wayne County sheriff. McKinnon gets $92,451 a year.
Ike McKinnon gets $92,451 each year.
McKinnon, 70, has collected $1,069,741 since retiring in 1998, Snell notes. He's currently an associate professor of education at University of Detroit Mercy.
On top of the 23 city retirees who receive pensions of more than $100,000 a year, another 59 retirees receive more than $90,000 a year.
That latter segment includes Gary Brown, a former deputy police chief who left the city council last week to accept a $225,000 job with Orr. Brown's pension is $61,206 a year, Snell writes.
In contrast, retired Detroit police and firefighters receive $30,607 an average of a year and general retirees get $19,213, The News says.
The city's pension system is underfunded by about $3.5 billion. Orr has not ruled out freezing employee pensions or replacing them with a 401(k) plan, Snell notes.
