Stories indexed with the term ‘living wage’

AAATA OKs Capital Program, Paratransit Deal

Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority board meeting (Dec. 19, 2013): The last meeting of the year was attended by just five of the nine board members who are appointed and serving – and one needed to depart early. So to maintain a quorum, the meeting went by brisker than most. Even with a staff presentation on the capital and categorical grant program, the meeting concluded after about 45 minutes.

From left: Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority's newest board member, pending confirmation by the Ypsilanti Township board of trustees, and Eric Mahler, AAATA board member.

From left: Larry Krieg, Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority’s newest board member, pending confirmation by the Ypsilanti Township board of trustees, and Eric Mahler, AAATA board member. (Photos by the writer.)

That capital and categorical grant program got a unanimous vote of approval at the Dec. 19 meeting. It’s a plan for spending about $45 million in federal funds over the next five years. According to the AAATA, this year’s plan does not include additional capital needs that would be associated with a five-year service improvement plan in the urban core, or any funding associated with rail initiatives. Having in place such a capital and categorical grant program – a set of allocations for specific categories of capital expenditures – is a requirement to be eligible for federal funding. [.pdf of 2014-2018 grant program]

The five-year service improvement plan could be implemented by the AAATA with funding that will likely be sought through an additional millage sometime in 2014. That would require approval of a majority of voters in the three jurisdictions making up the AAATA – the city of Ann Arbor, the city of Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township. The township became a member as a result of an Ann Arbor city council vote taken on Nov. 18, 2013.

The expected appointee to the AAATA board from Ypsilanti Township, Larry Krieg, attended the Dec. 19 meeting and sat at the table, although his appointment has not yet been confirmed by the township board of trustees. His confirmation did not appear on the township board’s Dec. 9, 2013 agenda. The next township board meeting is set for Jan. 21, 2014, which comes the week after the AAATA’s next regular meeting, on Jan. 16.

So Krieg did not participate in any of the votes taken on Dec. 19.

A significant vote taken by the board was to approve a nine-month extension of a contract with SelectRide through April 30, 2015, to provide paratransit service. The value of the contract for the extension period is $2.263 million. That’s essentially a pro-rated amount of SelectRide’s current contract, which ran through July 31, 2014.

The AAATA is currently preparing a request for proposals (RFP) with an eye to overhaul the concept of its paratransit service – which comes in the context of the possible five-year service improvement plan. Without a contract extension, that RFP would need to be ready for issuance in time to complete selection of a vendor by the time SelectRide’s current contract expires in July 2014. To avoid the possibility of an interruption in service, the AAATA board approved the SelectRide contract extension.

Other business items handled by the board included contracts for snow removal and janitorial services. [Full Story]

Living Wage for AAATA Janitorial Services

A renewal of the contract for janitorial services with JNS Commercial Cleaning has triggered application of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority’s two-and-a-half-year-old living wage policy.

The impact of the living wage policy, together with additional bi-weekly floor care services at the AAATA headquarters, will increase the annual value of the contract from $72,000 annually to $102,000. The three-year contract with JNS had already been authorized by the AAATA board at its Dec. 16, 2010 meeting, with up to two one-year renewals. However, the amount of the increase connected to the one-year extension, with a remaining one-year renewal option, is 42% – which exceeds the 10% increase threshold for board approval specified in the AAATA’s procurement policies.

AAATA board action authorizing … [Full Story]

AAATA Increases Security Contract

The new Blake Transit Center, still under construction in downtown Ann Arbor by the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority, will get additional unarmed security from Advance Security as a result of AAATA board action at its Nov. 21, 2013 meeting. The board approved an increase from the $205,000 annual contract amount authorized by the board at its April 19, 2012 meeting to bring the annual value of the contract to $242,000.

BTC under construction

BTC under construction on Nov. 21, 2013. View is from Fifth Avenue looking southwest.

The increase will allow for around-the-clock security service coverage at the Blake Transit Center construction site. According to the staff memo accompanying the … [Full Story]

A2: “Thrive-able” Wages

In an opinion piece published by the Detroit News, Zingerman’s co-founder Paul Saginaw describes his company’s efforts to pay its food-service workers more than the federally mandated living wage. He writes: ”We would be irresponsible employers if the jobs we provided could not support housing stability and health security. So we are motivated to gradually raise wages to a ‘thrive-able level’ for all of our lowest-paid employees across the board. A living wage is the path to a living economy and the antidote to the current suicide economy trajectory we find ourselves on.” [Source]

15th District Court Drives City Budget Adjustment

The annual year-end budget adjustment has been approved by the Ann Arbor city council. The changes to the FY 2013 budget totaled $567,000 for the general fund, much of which stemmed from additional expenses incurred by the 15th District Court. [.pdf of proposed amendments]

The 15th District Court’s portion of that adjustment stemmed from $112,000 in salary increases based on an interest in retaining employees, $203,000 due to a “catch up” payment to the law firm that provides indigent representation, and a back-bill for security from Washtenaw County for two fiscal years for $110,000.

Related to the FY 2013 budget adjustment to account for 15th District Court indigent representation were two other agenda items regarding the law firm that provides that … [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Tables Living Wage Changes

Consideration of several amendments to Ann Arbor’s living wage ordinance has now been tabled by the Ann Arbor city council. The action to table was taken at the council’s Feb. 19, 2013 meeting. If there’s not a motion to take up the issue again within six months, the changes would demise.

Previously, the council had postponed the ordinance amendments at its Nov. 19, 2012 meeting. The main proposed changes to the local law – which sets a minimum wage of $12.17/hour for those employers providing health insurance and $13.57/hour for those not providing health insurance – would exempt nonprofits that receive funding from the city for human services work. The changes would mean that such nonprofits would not need to … [Full Story]

Human Services Group Ponders Living Wage

The city of Ann Arbor’s living wage ordinance was the topic of a special session of the city’s housing and human services advisory board (HHSAB) held on Dec. 18. The current levels for Ann Arbor’s living wage are $12.17/hour for employers that offer benefits and $13.57/hour for those that don’t. It’s adjusted every year based on federal poverty guidelines.

Jim Mogensen, David Blanchard

Left to right: Jim Mogensen addressed the city’s housing and human services advisory board (HHSAB), including board chair David Blanchard, during its Dec. 18, 2012 meeting. (Photos by the writer.)

HHSAB members as a group displayed little enthusiasm for a possible revision to the city’s living wage ordinance – a change that would exempt some nonprofits from compliance. The nonprofits that would not have to pay their workers a living wage are those that provide human services under contract with the city.

However, the group formed a consensus around the idea that their board was, in fact, an appropriate body to review the possible change to the ordinance. Some members felt their attitude toward the possible exemption depended in part on whether they construed the responsibility of the HHSAB narrowly, to focus exclusively on those who receive human services, or broadly, to include humans generally.

The HHSAB review of a possible change to the living wage ordinance will be informed in part by work done by a class of University of Michigan students, to be taught in the winter 2013 term by Ian Robinson, a lecturer in the department of sociology. Robinson attended the Dec. 18 meeting of the HHSAB, and sketched out the range of work he thought his students might be able to do to assist the board. The original timeline for the board to deliver a recommendation to the Ann Arbor city council was mid-February. But it appears now that will be pushed at least to March and possibly April.

The HHSAB is reviewing the living wage ordinance at the direction of the Ann Arbor city council, which had considered an ordinance revision at its Nov. 19, 2012 meeting. The council postponed the matter until mid-February, pending advice from HHSAB.

But discussion of the city’s living wage ordinance had begun at meetings of the HHSAB two months before that. At its Sept. 13 meeting, HHSAB board members were addressed by Joan Doughty, executive director of Community Action Network (CAN), on the topic of the city’s living wage ordinance. She indicated that CAN hired many part-time work/study students for its after-school programs – and her organization had to pay them $13.57 an hour under the city’s living wage ordinance. That detracted from CAN’s ability to pay its full-time staff, who depend on wages paid by CAN to earn a livelihood. HHSAB discussed the idea of forming a subcommittee to study the issue.

City councilmembers Sandi Smith and Jane Lumm, who then served as council liaisons to HHSAB, had introduced a resolution at the council’s Sept. 17, 2012 meeting on the topic. Their resolution would have waived the living wage requirement for those nonprofits that provide human services under contract with the city – which include CAN, although CAN was not mentioned in the resolution or the council’s discussion. That resolution was withdrawn, because it amounted to an ordinance change, which can’t be accomplished with a simple resolution. Councilmembers were told to expect a proposal for an ordinance change in the future.

HHSAB discussed the living wage again at its Oct. 16 meeting, determining that additional study was needed before making a recommendation. But at the city council’s Nov. 8, 2012 meeting, Lumm introduced a resolution to grant a waiver to CAN. Her resolution invoked the ordinance provision that allows the council to grant such a waiver for a specific nonprofit. The council granted the waiver, but on just a 9-2 vote. That relieved some of the immediate pressure – because it meant that CAN could receive its grant under contract with the city. The city had been withholding CAN’s allocation, because CAN could not sign an attestation that it was complying with the living wage ordinance.

So when the city council subsequently considered the proposed change to the living wage ordinance, at its Nov. 19 meeting, it did so without the sense of urgency that came with the earlier context of CAN’s financial difficulties. [.pdf of marked up proposed changes to living wage ordinance] The council’s postponement included a referral to HHSAB for its input.

The well-attended special meeting of HHSAB on Dec. 18 included some who were involved in the push to establish Ann Arbor’s living wage ordinance back in 2001. It was clear from the discussion that the situation of nonprofits that deliver human services had been consciously considered when the local law was first enacted over a decade ago. And because of that previous consideration, it seems unlikely – based on the board’s conversations on Dec. 18 – that HHSAB would make a recommendation in support of an ordinance change.  [Full Story]

Pre-Thanksgiving Council Pre-Heats Oven

Ann Arbor city council meeting (Nov. 19, 2012): The first meeting of the council’s new edition featured delaying action on two main agenda items – revisions to the Ann Arbor living wage ordinance, and two competing proposals about the city’s public art ordinance.

The newly elected members of council are sworn in by city clerk Jackie Beaudry (back to camera). From left: mayor John Hieftje, Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5), Margie Teall (Ward 4), Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Sally Petersen (Ward 2) and Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1).

The newly elected members of council are sworn in by city clerk Jackie Beaudry (back to camera). From left: mayor John Hieftje, Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5), Margie Teall (Ward 4), Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Sally Petersen (Ward 2) and Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1). (Photos by the writer.)

Legislative activity on the public art ordinance resulted from the Nov. 6 rejection by voters of an alternate means of funding public art – a 0.1 mill tax that would have generated roughly $450,000 annually. At the Nov. 19 meeting, Jane Lumm (Ward 2) proposed ending the existing public art program, which requires that 1% of the budget for all capital projects in the city be allocated for public art – with a limit of $250,000 per project. A competing proposal, from Sabra Briere (Ward 1), would narrow the type of capital project from which Percent for Art funds could be allocated. Briere’s proposal would have the practical effect of reducing – by about 90% – the amount of public art funds generated by the existing program. In the last two years the program has generated over $300,000 a year, and more in previous years.

The council wound up tabling both proposals, a parliamentary move that means there’s no particular time in the future when the council must consider them. The proposals will expire, if the council does not take them up off the table in six months. However, the council’s strategy will likely be to appoint a committee to study the matter and to suspend temporarily the existing program. A resolution to that effect was added to the council’s agenda during the meeting, after the tabling of the other proposals – but that third resolution was then postponed until the council’s Dec. 3 meeting.

Also postponed was a set of revisions to the city’s living wage ordinance. The main change would be to exempt those nonprofits from the ordinance that receive funding through the city’s human services allocation, which has totaled roughly $1.2 million each year for the last several years. The ordinance currently has a waiver provision, requiring a city-council-approved plan for compliance with the living wage ordinance within three years. Only one such waiver has been sought since the living wage ordinance was enacted in 2001. That came at the council’s meeting earlier this month, on Nov. 8, 2012.

Based on council deliberations at the Nov. 19 meeting, the living wage revisions in their current form seem likely to be approved only with great difficulty. Some councilmembers seemed more interested in pursuing exemptions for categories of workers – temporary or seasonal – instead of exempting categories of organizations. The living wage ordinance revisions were postponed until Feb. 19.

Getting initial approval were changes to two other city ordinances – on noise and the storage of cars on streets.

The changes to the noise ordinance were prompted by the impact that recent construction of the Landmark building at 601 S. Forest had on neighbors. If given final approval by the council, the changes would make clear that holidays are to be treated like Sundays and that supervisors can be cited under the ordinance, not just a worker who’s operating a piece of equipment.

The revision to the towing ordinance would make it easier to prevent people from storing inoperable vehicles on city streets. Like all changes to city ordinances, it will need a second vote by the council, after a public hearing.

In other business, the council authorized a $15,000 budget for analyzing alternatives for installing a sidewalk along a section of Scio Church Road. Residents in the area have petitioned the city for a sidewalk.

And Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) used his communications time toward the end of the meeting as an occasion to deliver harsh criticism of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority and mayor John Hieftje.

In the first meeting for newly elected councilmembers, the council also chose Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) to serve as mayor pro tem, as she has for the last three years. The order of succession to the mayor, based on seniority lines, was also set. [Full Story]

Living Wage Exemption for Nonprofits Postponed

Several amendments to Ann Arbor’s living wage ordinance were postponed for three months by the city council at its Nov. 19, 2012 meeting. The main proposed changes to the law – which sets a minimum wage of $12.17/hour for those employers providing health insurance and $13.57/hour for those not providing health insurance – would exempt from the minimum wage requirements those nonprofits that receive funding from the city for human services work.

Consideration of the changes to the ordinance was postponed until the second council meeting in February 2013 and referred to the city’s Housing and Human Services Advisory Board for more study in the meantime.

The current law applies to companies that have contracts with the city for more than $10,000 … [Full Story]

Transit Withdrawal Before Council Transition

Ann Arbor city council meeting (Nov. 8, 2012): The post-election meeting of the council – moved from its usual Monday slot to Thursday – featured one high-profile piece of business watched by many throughout the county. That was a vote on withdrawal by the city of Ann Arbor from a new transit authority – called The Washtenaw Ride – which was incorporated on Oct. 3, 2012. The vote to opt out was 10-0. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) was absent.

Margie Teall

Margie Teall (Ward 4) raises her hand asking to be recognized so she can speak at the Ann Arbor city council’s Nov. 8 meeting. (Photos by the writer.)

Smith had said her farewell from the council at the previous meeting, on Oct. 15. She had decided not to seek re-election to her seat. At the Nov. 8 meeting, two other councilmembers attended their final meeting – Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) who, like Smith, did not seek re-election, and Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) who did not prevail in his August Democratic primary. New councilmembers – Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1), Sally Petersen (Ward 2) and Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) – will be ceremonially sworn in at the start of the council’s next meeting on Nov. 19.

A transitional theme emerged, as discussion of some agenda items straddled the Nov. 8 and Nov. 19 meetings – including the transit authority opt-out vote. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) had been planning to bring a similar item forward on Nov. 19, when he felt he’d have a six-vote majority on the question. But that move was preempted by the Nov. 8 item, which included the sponsorship of Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and mayor John Hieftje – who had previously been key figures in supporting the city’s role in the planned authority.

Discussion of a living wage waiver for the nonprofit Community Action Network (CAN) also included mention of the Nov. 19 meeting. That’s when a proposal will be brought forward that would change the living wage ordinance itself. The preference of Hieftje and Hohnke to wait and consider the ordinance revision for all nonprofits – instead of granting a waiver to CAN – was strong enough that they voted against the waiver. But the eight votes it received were enough to ensure that for the next three years, CAN does not need to abide by the living wage ordinance – which would otherwise require it to pay all its workers $13.57/hour.

A resolution that transferred $90,000 from the general fund reserve to the affordable housing trust fund was part of the transitional theme – because it had Sandi Smith’s name attached as a sponsor, even though she could not attend the meeting. The dollar amount was keyed to the price of a strip of land belonging to the former YMCA lot, which the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority recently purchased from the city. The transfer of funds was made in the spirit, if not the letter, of a policy enacted by the council at Smith’s urging at her final council meeting. That policy called for net proceeds of the sale of the Y lot to be deposited in the affordable housing trust fund.

The council’s agenda for Nov. 19 was partially previewed when both Briere and Jane Lumm (Ward 2) announced they’d be bringing forward proposals to revise the city’s Percent for Art ordinance – in the wake of a failed public art millage proposal at the polls on Nov. 6. Briere’s proposal would alter the definition of projects that qualify, while Lumm’s would eliminate the program. The Percent for Art ordinance requires that 1% of the budgets for all capital projects be set aside for public art.

And although he’ll be leaving the council, Derezinski will serve out the remainder of Evan Pratt’s term on the city planning commission. Pratt is leaving that role after being elected Washtenaw County water resources commissioner. At the Nov. 8 meeting, council confirmed Derezinski’s planning commission nomination, which had come at the council’s previous meeting. The council also decided to expand a task force on planning for the North Main corridor to make room for outgoing councilmember Sandi Smith, and appointed her to that group as a citizen member. She’s been serving as the council’s representative.

In other business, a resolution that would have moved toward converting the city’s retirement system to a defined contribution plan – instead of a defined benefit plan – was withdrawn. The council also approved increasing the staffing level of the fire department from 85 to 86 firefighters. And the city’s sign board of appeals (SBA) was dissolved by the council, with responsibilities transferred to the zoning board of appeals (ZBA). The council also voted to give city attorney Stephen Postema a 2.4% raise, his first in five years. [Full Story]

Nonprofit CAN Gets Living Wage Exemption

For the next three years, the Community Action Network (CAN) will not have to pay its workers at the level required by the city of Ann Arbor’s living wage ordinance.

CAN is a nonprofit dedicated to improving communities in underprivileged Washtenaw County neighborhoods, and receives allocations from the city through the city’s coordinated funding process to support human services. For fiscal year 2013, CAN was allocated $105,809 by the city for its Y.E.S. You CAN! program. Because those annual allocations exceed $10,000, CAN is subject to the city’s living wage ordinance, which currently requires that a minimum of $12.17/hour be paid to employees by employers who provide health insurance and $13.57/hour by those employers not providing health insurance.

However, Ann Arbor’s living wage ordinance has … [Full Story]

City Council Punts on Several Agenda Items

Ann Arbor city council meeting (Sept. 17, 2012): The council’s initial agenda, released on Wednesday before the Monday meeting, was relatively light. But by the time the council had approved that agenda to start the meeting, it had grown considerably heavier.

Left to right: Sandi Smith (Ward 1) and former councilmember and planning commissioner Jean Carlberg.

Left to right: Sandi Smith (Ward 1) and former councilmember and planning commissioner Jean Carlberg. (Photos by the writer.)

Five significant items had been added: (1) a proposal to suspend temporarily the footing drain disconnection program in one area of the city; (2) a proposal to waive temporarily the city’s living wage requirement for certain nonprofits; (3) a proposal to establish a sidewalk gap elimination program; (4) a resolution on dealing with proceeds of city-owned land sales that competed with one already on the agenda; and (5) reconsideration of allocating $60,000 for a transit study – funding that the council had rejected at its previous meeting.

The first two items were added on Friday, Sept. 14. The second two were added the day of the meeting (Sept. 17), with the fifth item added at the council table. Of the added items, the council approved only one – to suspend temporarily the footing drain disconnect program. The rest were  postponed, withdrawn or voted down.

Postponed was the resolution added by Mike Anglin (Ward 5) to establish a committee of city officials and 10 residents – two from each ward, to be selected by councilmembers for respective wards – to address the issue of city-owned parcels in downtown Ann Arbor. The citizen committee to be established by Anglin’s resolution would study the available options for use of proceeds from the sale of downtown city properties.

Also postponed was the resolution that Anglin’s proposal was essentially challenging, which was brought forward by Sandi Smith (Ward 1). Smith wants to direct the proceeds from city-owned land sales to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Her idea – which she first floated to her council colleagues in an email written in late August – enjoyed the support of nonprofits, as well as the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board and the Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

While Anglin’s resolution was postponed until Oct. 1, Smith’s was referred to the council’s budget committee and postponed until the council’s Oct. 15 meeting.

Also postponed was a requested $60,000 contribution to fund further study of a transportation connector – for the corridor running from US-23 and Plymouth southward along Plymouth to State Street and farther south to I-94. The outcome of this phase is to identify a preferred choice of technology (e.g., bus rapid transit, light rail, etc.) and the location of stations and stops. The council had voted down the proposal at its Sept. 4 meeting, but it was brought back for reconsideration on Sept. 17, only to be postponed until Oct. 15. The $60,000 is meant to be the city’s share of a $300,000 local match for a $1.2 million federal grant that has already been awarded.

Withdrawn was the proposal to waive a requirement of the city’s living wage ordinance for those nonprofits that receive funding from the city to deliver human services. The ordinance has a provision for a hardship waiver, but states that a nonprofit must submit a plan for eventual compliance within three years. No nonprofits had submitted such plans, meaning that the council’s resolution would have amounted to an attempt by the council to amend the living wage ordinance through a simple resolution, which it cannot do. When the council reached the item on the agenda, it was withdrawn, with an indication that an ordinance revision would be brought forward to a future meeting.

Also at the Sept. 17 meeting, the council heard about an item related to nonprofit funding for human services that will be brought forward on Oct. 1: a request to continue the two-year pilot program for coordinated funding. That news came during a presentation from Mary Jo Callan, head of the city/county office of community and economic development.

Voted down was a plan to initiate a 5-year program to eliminate sidewalk gaps in the city. Councilmembers voting against the resolution pointed to the fact that the city’s non-motorized transportation plan takes a comprehensive approach to identifying such gaps. They feared that people might mistakenly believe that certain gaps would necessarily be filled through this program, and raised concerns about equity. The resolution sought to identify independent funding sources to pay for such projects – the city’s strategy in the past has been to levy special assessments on owners of property adjoining the sidewalks.

The footing drain disconnect program was the only one of the late additions to the agenda on which the council took final action. In the general vicinity of the Lansdowne neighborhood, where some houses have already had sump pumps installed as part of the disconnect program, residents have reported that during heavy rains, the overland stormwater flows and the sheer volume of water in the city’s stormwater system prevent sump pumps from being effective. At an Aug. 22 neighborhood meeting, residents had called for a moratorium on the program. That’s essentially what the council’s resolution did.

Flooding was also a topic included in other council business that had been placed on the agenda through the regular agenda-setting process. The council approved an update to the city’s hazard mitigation plan. It will allow the city to receive already-approved federal funds for demolishing two out-buildings located in the floodway at the city-owned 721 N. Main property.

Also related to emergency preparedness, the city council authorized the purchase of a light rescue vehicle that can be used by firefighters to respond to medical calls. Because its staffing requirement is just two firefighters instead of three, the use of the vehicle would allow response to medical calls without diminishing as much of the department’s response capability for fire calls.

The council also gave final approval to rezoning of an Eden Court property to public land. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Mulls No Living Wage for Nonprofits

Nonprofits that receive funding from the city of Ann Arbor to provide human services may in the future not be required to adhere to the city’s living wage ordinance. However, a resolution related to that issue was withdrawn from the city council’s Sept. 17, 2012 agenda, pending further review by the city’s housing and human services advisory board.

It’s expected that a recommended ordinance change will be brought to a future council meeting.

The living wage is defined by city ordinance Chapter 23, Section 1:815, and was increased slightly earlier this year in order to conform with the ordinance. The new wage was set at $12.17/hour for those employers paying health insurance and $13.57/hour for those employers not paying health insurance.

The city ordinance applies to … [Full Story]

AATA OKs Unarmed Security Contract

At its April 19, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board authorized a one-year, $205,000 contract with Advance Security to provide unarmed security guard services. It will be for the fourth year of a contract first authorized by the board on March 19, 2009 for one year.

The contract came before the board, because it increased the amount of the contract from the previous year by more than 10% – from $150,000 to $205,000, or 36.7%. The AATA procurement policy requires board approval for increases of contracts over 10%. The new contract is based on hourly wages between $14.33 and $19.67 per hour for a regular shift, and between $21.50 and $29.51 for extra hours and holidays.

The hourly wages … [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Living Wage Bumps Upward

On its April 16, 2012 meeting agenda, the Ann Arbor city council recorded in its written communications a memo from its financial services staff about the city’s living wage. The wage, as defined by city ordinance Chapter 23, Section 1:815, will be raised slightly in order to conform with the ordinance.

The new wage is set at $12.17/hour for those employers paying health insurance and $13.57/hour for those employers not paying health insurance. The previous minimum hourly rates were $11.83/hour for those employers paying health insurance, and $13.19/hour for those employers not paying health insurance. The wage is evaluated each year, and this year is the second year in a row that the wage will increase. The living wage was raised to last year’s … [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Bumps Pay for Election Workers

At its Jan. 9, 2012 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council voted to increase the pay for election inspectors – those who work at the polls on election day to verify the registration of voters and to handle all the other duties associated with ensuring compliance with election laws at each precinct.

The approved increases are as follows: election inspector from $8 to $9/hour; floater from $8.50 to $9.50/hour; chairperson from $11.25 to $12/hour; and absent voter count board supervisor from $14 to $14.50/hour. According to a staff memo accompanying the resolution, prepared by the city clerk’s office, the increase in pay is expected to cost $2,000 in a local election and $8,000 in a presidential election. For the upcoming 2012 presidential … [Full Story]

AATA Finalizes Transit Plan for Washtenaw

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board meetings (June 3 and June 16, 2011): The AATA board met twice in June – first at a special morning retreat held at Weber’s Inn on  June 3 June 6, and again 10 days later for its regular monthly meeting.

Michael Ford Slide Act 196 Local Participation

Michael Ford, CEO of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, presents a possible board configuration for a countywide transit authority at the board's June 3 meeting at Weber's Inn. (Photos by the writer.)

On both occasions, a significant focus was the AATA’s countywide transit master plan. At the June 16 meeting, the board approved the final version of the first two volumes of the plan, which had previously been released in draft form. The two volumes cover a vision and an implementation strategy. A third volume, on funding options, is not yet complete.

The plan is the culmination of over a year of work by AATA staff and a consulting firm to perform a technical analysis and gather public input. The goal was to create a document to guide transit planning in the county over the next 30 years. The timing of the next step – beginning to translate a neatly formatted document into reality – will depend in part on a third volume of the plan, which has not yet been finalized. The third volume will describe options for how to fund expanded transit service in the county. Countywide transit funding will ultimately be tied to the governance structure of some entity to administer transit throughout Washtenaw County.

And governance is a topic that’s ultimately reflected in the actual wording of the resolution that the board adopted at its June 16 meeting on the transit master plan. The resolution authorizes transmittal of the documents not just to the public, but also to an unincorporated board, described as an “ad hoc committee” that will work to incorporate a formal transit authority under Michigan’s Act 196 of 1986. [AATA is currently incorporated under Act 55 of 1963.]

For the last few months, CEO Michael Ford’s regular monthly reports to the AATA board about his activities have included his efforts to meet with individuals and representatives of government units throughout the county to discuss participation in the governance of a countywide transportation authority. June continued that trend. So wrapped into this combined report of the AATA board’s last two meetings is a description of the June 2 visit that Ford and board chair Jesse Bernstein made to the Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

At its June 3 retreat, the board also voted to shift some funding to the AATA staff’s work associated with the countywide transit master plan.

At its June 16 meeting, the board handled some business not specifically related to the transit master plan. The board adopted two policies that it has previously discussed: one on the rotation of auditors, and the other on a living wage for AATA vendors. They also received updates on the expansion of service to the University of Michigan’s East Ann Arbor Health Center and to the Detroit Metro airport.

Progress on those two fronts led board member David Nacht to suggest that the kind of movement and progress the AATA was demonstrating, even without additional money that could come from a countywide funding source, showed that the agency’s future plans deserved support from the community. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Law Nudges Living Wage Upwards

At its May 16, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council recorded on its agenda of written communications a memo from its financial services staff that its living wage, as defined by city ordinance Chapter 23, Section 1:815, will be raised slightly in order to conform with the ordinance.

The new wage is set at $11.83/hour for those employers paying health insurance, and $13.19/hour for those employers not paying health insurance. That’s an increase from previous levels which have remained flat for a few years at $11.71 per hour for employers offering health insurance and $13.06 per hour for those who don’t offer health insurance.

The Ann Arbor city ordinance applies to the wages that must be paid by companies who have contracts with the city worth more than $10,000. Passed in 2001, the city’s living wage ordinance stipulated in that year that workers vendors who held contracts with the city had to pay their employees a minimum of $8.70/hour if the contractor provided employee health care and $10.20/hour if not.

The ordinance provides a mechanism for increasing the living wage based on federal poverty guidelines. Ann Arbor’s living wage is to be increased each year by “… a percentage equal to the percentage increase, if any, in the federal poverty guidelines as published by the United States Department of Health and Human Services …” This year, the guidelines showed a 1.0% increase, and the living wage has thus been increased as well. [.pdf of poverty guidelines]

[Previous Chronicle coverage on the living wage ordinance: "Living Wage: Insourcing City Temps"]

[Full Story]

AATA Mulls Living Wage, Adds Chelsea Trip

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board meeting (Dec. 16, 2010): At their last meeting of the year, the AATA board unanimously approved a contract for janitorial services at the Blake Transit Center, which had been postponed from its November meeting amid concerns about how the new vendor was achieving its considerably lower cost.

From AATA documentation, before (left) and after (right) bus stop improvements at the Mallets Creek branch of the Ann Arbor District Library. (Image links to higher resolution file.)

Board member Rich Robben had raised concerns regarding whether appropriate wages were being paid, but was convinced to support approval of the contract in part because of another resolution on the agenda. That resolution, which the board also passed unanimously, directed AATA staff to explore the possibility of a living wage provision for its contractors that would be similar to the ordinance used by the city of Ann Arbor.

The board also approved adding an additional return trip for the AATA’s commuter express service between Chelsea and Ann Arbor. The trip will leave Ann Arbor for Chelsea at 7:10 p.m. It was added in part due to feedback from current riders, who would have greater flexibility to work later on days when they take the bus to work. Many of the riders are University of Michigan employees. Robben, who is executive director for plant operations at the university, reported that the value placed on the express service by riders had been “bludgeoned” into him by some of his coworkers. He voted for the additional trip, along with the rest of the board.

The board was also given a presentation on the AATA’s bus stop improvement program, which featured several before-and-after slides. And among the topics reported out by the board’s committees and CEO Michael Ford was the on-time performance of AATA buses.

At the start of the meeting, during the time for communications and announcements, board member David Nacht noted the passing of Rev. S. L. Roberson, whose memorial service was taking place that evening. Nacht described Roberson as a force for equality in Washtenaw County and an important person in the community. Board chair Jesse Bernstein recalled having worked with Roberson in the ’70s at Ford Motor Co., and described him as an excellent person.

Bernstein concluded the meeting by thanking the AATA staff and the board for all their hard work this year, and suggested that next year they’d be asked to work even harder. [Full Story]

Living Wage: In-Sourcing City Temps

At their March 15, 2010 meeting, the Ann Arbor city councilmembers heard an update from city administrator Roger Fraser during his regular report to them: The staffing of temporary positions administered by Manpower, a temporary staffing agency, would be be brought back in-house.

And two months later, attached to the city council’s May 3, 2010 agenda was a communication about Health and Human Services guidelines for poverty levels – there was no change this year. That means there’s no change to the minimum compensation required under the city’s living wage ordinance.

How does the living wage ordinance relate to the approximately 35-40 temporary employees who are transitioning from Manpower to the city’s payroll? It doesn’t. The city itself is not required to pay its own workers at the level stipulated by the living wage ordinance – it applies to outside contractors with the city, like Manpower.

But the majority (with some exceptions) of the transitioned workers won’t see a drop in their wages – and that’s viewed as a positive outcome by the city. On the other hand, there’s no health insurance benefits through the city for those workers – Manpower had offered a health insurance option. And a hoped-for increase in temporary workers’ wages – a move supported by some city supervisors – did not materialize, foundering on an overall budget climate that made talk of wage cuts easier than a discussion of increases.

The recent move away from the use of Manpower as an agency to staff temporary city positions provides a good excuse to review the living wage ordinance itself, and its less-than-obvious connection to the upcoming Ann Arbor Summer Festival and to the city’s recycling program. In the case of the recycling program, the city is spending several hundred thousand dollars over a 10-year period to ensure that workers for a private company operating the city’s materials recovery facility are paid in compliance with the living wage ordinance. [Full Story]

Meeting Watch: City Council (17 November 2008)

Carsten Hohnke and Mike Anglin, both of Ward 5, framed by the chairs of Christopher Taylor and Leigh Greden, both of Ward 3.

Outside the Larcom Building around 6 p.m., Ann Arbor Police Lt. Michael Logghe was using a “slim Jim” to try to gain entry to a citizen’s car. The woman had locked herself out of her vehicle with the engine running.

She was there to pay a $15 parking ticket. She was hoping to avoid a call to the tow truck. Logghe had not achieved success by the time The Chronicle headed inside for the reception for new members of council.

Later, inside Larcom, the newly constituted city council with four new members began its year of work by approving the transfer of a liquor license to Quickie Burger, three drainage projects to be implemented to reduce phosphorus load along Allen Creek, plus a contract with Dawn Farms to provide in-patient and out-patient drug abuse counseling and rehabilitation services to the 15th Judicial District Court. [Full Story]