This year, voters can reduce the pay of board members.

It’s Annual Meeting time for townships throughout Michigan – the one time of year when residents who are eligible to vote in township elections and who attend the meeting in person can vote on whether members of their township board should receive a salary increase.

This year’s Annual Meetings will be different from most because 2008 is an election year – the only year in which township voters can not only approve or deny a pay raise for elected township board members, but may also reduce the annual salaries of township board members. During non-election years, state law prohibits township voters from reducing the pay of elected officials while they are in the first three years of their four-year terms.

But that’s not the case in an election year. The thinking is that if township residents vote to reduce the pay of elected officials in an election year, those officials can decide whether they want to run for re-election later that year and thereby accept the reduced salary that residents have decided they should receive in their next term.

That is exactly the situation that will play out during the Cleveland Township Annual Meeting slated for this Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Cleveland Township Hall. Last month – more than 30 days before the township’s annual meeting, according to state law – the Cleveland Township Board adopted salary resolutions that will increase salaries for the supervisor and clerk for the first time in three years by about four percent, but will reduce pay for the treasurer by around 16 percent.

Cleveland Township supervisor Tim Stein explained that the township board had erred in previous years by adding pay for summer tax collections on a “per parcel” basis to the $10,710 “base” salary of treasurer Bess Musil. The combined pay formula resulted in the treasurer receiving $14,620 per year – a rate of pay considerably higher than amounts received by treasurers in similar-sized townships, according to Stein.

Salary resolutions adopted by the board last month would set the treasurer’s “base” salary at $12,275 – higher than her current “base” salary, but lower than the amount she had actually been receiving when the “per parcel” tax collection fees were erroneously added directly to her compensation. The board last month voted 4-1 to approve the new pay rate for the treasurer, with Musil opposed.

“Nobody will do this job for $12,275,” Musil said last month while casting her vote in opposition to the board’s salary resolution. Musil has served as the Cleveland Township treasurer for more than 35 years and is the township’s highest-paid official.
Cleveland Township is the only one of nine townships in Leelanau County that hold Annual Meetings where an elected official is being asked to take a pay cut in the coming year. Leland Township held its Annual Meeting last Saturday, March 15, when township electors approved salary resolutions calling for pay raises for township officials.

Neither Elmwood nor Suttons Bay townships have held Annual Meetings for more than a decade. The law does not require townships to hold Annual Meetings, although township boards can decide whether to do so, and township voters may petition for a referendum to require their township to hold an Annual Meeting.

That’s what happened several years ago after the Bingham Township Board decided to cease holding Annual Meetings. Citizens successfully petitioned for a referendum to reinstate the practice. The Bingham Township Board then decided on its own to begin holding Annual Meetings – a decision the board had the authority to overturn up until the referendum was held. A majority of Bingham voters subsequently voted in favor of making Annual Meetings permanent. Now, the only way Bingham Township could stop holding them would be if there is another vote of the people to cease the practice.

Bingham Township is the only Leelanau County township that holds an Annual Meeting in a month other than March. Bingham’s Annual Meeting is held near the end of June to coincide with the beginning of the township’s fiscal year on July 1. The fiscal year for other townships in Leelanau County runs from April 1 to March 31 – so most Annual Meetings are held in the latter half of March.

“The annual meeting is different from other township meetings,” according to a booklet published by the Michigan Townships Association. “It is a meeting of township electors; not a meeting of the township board. Township board members participate at the annual meeting as electors.”

An “elector” is defined as a township resident who is eligible to register to vote in the township. Michigan law does not require a citizen to actually be a registered voter to participate and vote at a township annual meeting. Electors at a township meeting vote by voice, not by secret ballot. Frequently, in a close decision on a salary resolution, township electors are asked to raise their hands so votes can be counted.

Electors at the Annual Meeting used to have extensive powers until the 1940s when increasing demand for services from rural and suburban governments resulted in many of those powers being delegated to the township board, according to the Michigan Townships Association. In fact, the only significant power remaining for township electors at Annual Meetings is their ability to cast a vote on salaries for township board members.

Here are the upcoming annual meetings in Leelanau County:

• Cleveland Township, March 22, at 10 a.m. at the Cleveland Township Hall.

• Centerville Township, March 29, at 10 a.m. at the Centerville Township Hall.

• Empire Township, March 29 at 2 p.m. at the Empire Township Hall.

• Glen Arbor Township, March 29 at 10 a.m. at the Glen Arbor Township Hall.

• Kasson Township, March 29 at 10 a.m. at the Kasson Township Hall.

• Leelanau Township, March 29 at 10 a.m. at the Northport Fire Hall.

• Solon Township, March 29 at 10 a.m. at the Cedar Fire Hall.