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Dearborn Heights budget hearing turns to pay, staffing and proposed raises
Summary
Council members reviewed personnel items in the mayor’s proposed FY2526 budget: the administration included a 2% nonunion raise and a proposed HR director salary of about $100,000. Council members asked to remove noncontractual raises and asked for comparables for director pay after debate over the police and fire chief salaries.
Chief of Staff Mariana Hernandez and Deputy Director Mahdi Beydoun walked council through personnel requests embedded in the mayor’s proposed budget, including a 2% raise for nonunion employees and a proposed HR director salary that administration said would be about $100,000.
Council members objected to adding noncontractual raises before the council had confidence in revenue projections. One councilmember asked that “everything that’s noncontractual should be removed” from the budget; the administration said it would make that change after the meeting. The mayor’s office salary line totals and the human resources department budget were discussed in detail: the HR department total was presented as $475,820.
Council members also raised a long‑running pay issue among department heads. Several speakers noted the police chief’s salary as listed in the presentation (about $131,000) and compared it to the fire chief’s listed salary (about $104,000), prompting calls to review director comparables and ranges rather than set pay by comparing individual positions.
The administration said it prepared ranges using market comparables for each director role and that the compensation commission sets elected officials’ pay, with changes expected in December. Council members asked staff to provide comparables for director positions so the council could consider adjustments during budget deliberations.
Next steps: administration will remove noncontractual raises pending council direction and will provide comparative salary data and the total budgetary impact of the proposed 2% across salaries for council review.
