Embattled Treasurer Says Trustees' Vote to Slash Her Pay a 'Political Ploy'

After Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder declined to remove West Bloomfield Township Treasurer Teri Weingarden from office, the township’s Board of Trustees took matters in their own hands, voting March 10 to cut the salary for the position and farm out many of the duties to an outside contractors.

The action cuts the treasurer’s  pay from $106,224 to $22,000 takes effect after the next Board of Trustees election in 2016, the Detroit Free Press reports. State law prohibits a majority on township boards from cutting a member’s pay in mid-term.

Only Weingarden voted against the resolution, which passed 6-1.

The action follows several years of wrangling among trustees over Weingarden’s handling of the township’s finances. Township trustees’ concerns date back to 2008. She was handily re-elected in 2012, signaling to other trustees that she would survive a recall election if they pursued one.

Last summer, trustees asked attorneys to investigate concerns over bank documents; they later expanded the scope of the investigation to include "irregularities" in the treasurer's office.

The findings of the investigation painted a picture of financial mismanagement and risky bond investments that put the township’s bond rating in jeopardy, the basis for the request to Snyder to remove her from office.

Weingarden, who has repeatedly and vehemently denied any wrongdoing, said the latest action was political ploy to dissuade her from seeking re-election.

She told the Free Press she’s undecided about whether she will run again.

“We’ll just have to see,” she said “I do feel I have the basis to sue the township, but I really don’t want the residents to have to pay more legal fees to deal with this.”

In the meantime, West Bloomfield Township trustees plan to shell out $70,000 to outsource key functions of her job

“The treasurer still retains all of her statutory authority, but she no longer has day-to-day operating chores, so we no longer have to worry about that,” said trustee Dr. Howard Rosenberg, who said he and other trustees are eager to put the matter behind them.

“I’m exhausted — I think we all are — and I look forward to just doing the business of the township,” he told the Free Press.

Weingarden hasn’t given any indication that she plans to let the matter drop.

“I’ll just keep coming back and coming back,” she told the newspaper, explaining that she will use the public comment session at each board meeting to defend her job performance.

During her annual State of the Township speech, West Bloomfield Supervisor Michele Economou Ureste assured residents of one of MIchigan’s most affluent big communities that their money is safe because an outside investment firm will be hired to oversee investments of the the township’s tens of millions of dollars in reserve funds.

“We have about three years left in Teri’s term of office, so we just couldn’t look the other way — we had to do something,” Economou Ureste  told the Free Press.