After presenting her first budget as mayor to the Detroit City Council, Mayor Mary Sheffield unveiled her plan to make sure all Detroit municipal employees are paid a livable wage.
Sheffield signed an executing order instructing the city’s human resources director to provide a report within 60 days detailing how many full-time city employees are making less than a livable wage, which she put at $21.45 an hour. Sheffield said her office estimates this could include up to 900 city employees.
“Importantly, 70% of those individuals are Detroit residents,” she said. “That means that we are investing not only in our workforce but also strengthening our families in our neighborhoods across our city.”
In her budget presentation, Sheffield said her spending plan included $7.9 million for the raises. The funds would appear in the city’s non-departmental budget, which the mayor’s office estimated wwould be able to cover the costs of the raises entirely.
Sheffield said raising the wages for city employees is important as they have done much of the work to facilitate Detroit’s comeback since filing for bankruptcy in 2013.
“Detroit's comeback over the past decade would not have been possible without the hard work, the sacrifice of our city of Detroit employees,” she said. “The men and women who keep our cities safe, our services running, and our city moving forward every single day and often go unrecognized and are often underpaid. As a city that is committed to reducing poverty and expanding opportunity, we must lead by example.”
The livable wage threshold would apply to city employees from all departments. Crystal Perkins, director of the Detroit’s General Services Department, said about 34% of her employees would benefit. Those employees do things like manage the city’s vehicle fleet and forestry services and maintain city-owned buildings and vacant lots.
“We have people who work two, sometimes three jobs just to make ends meet. We have families, we have moms, we have dads who have to pay for daycare. We have people who are trying to better their lives,” she said.
Denise Starr, human resources director for the city of Detroit, said some city employees could see raises as high as $5 per hour. Sheffield's proposed wage floor of $21.45 per hour matches the living wage in Wayne County for a single adult with no kids, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator.
