A new study from the Pew Charitable Trustsshows that Detroit spends a larger chunk of its budget on the City Council than other major cities.
Detroitspends just over 1% of its current general fund budget on Council expenses. The national median is just under 0.5%.
The study also looked at whether cities have Council term limits, or serve full- or part-time. Detroit has a full-time Council.
Thomas Ginsberg is the Project Manager of Pew’s Philadelphia-based research initiative. He says the research didn’t “find much correlation” between that status and costs.
“Most of the Councils that call themselves part-time…in fact the members work much more than part-time. So we found that’s not a particularly useful term. That’s a commentary more about the term than the numbers.”
But Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh calls portions of the study “totally inaccurate.”
Pugh says Detroit’s Council budget also includes some administrative offices, like the city planning commission. He also points out that Detroit Council members’ have lower salaries than most of their counterparts in other cities.
