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Thursday, May 24, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS

LEO calls for a close
in campus wage gap

Dearborn and Flint 
push for higher wages

By ALICE TRACEY

Summer Daily News Editor

Steven Toth, a chemistry lecturer 
at the University of Michigan-Flint, 
loves to teach. According to Toth, 
his teaching experience at U-M Flint 
has been incredible, and he enjoys 
working with students and faculty 
there.
But Toth is considering leaving 
his job. He holds a doctorate in his 
field and teaches more students 
in the department than any other 
instructor, 
including 
tenured 
professors, but earns $28,000 a year.
“I’ve been working at U-M Flint 
now for many years, and just at this 
incredibly low salary, I haven’t been 
able to pull myself up at all,” Toth 
said. “I’ve been barely able to pay 
off my debts. I haven’t been able to 
afford a house. I can’t afford a nicer 
car. I can’t go on any vacations. We’ve 
been putting off starting a family for 
years because we can’t afford to have 
children.”

Toth 
is 
a 
member 
of 
the 
Lecturers’ Employee Organization, 
which represents about 1,700 non-
tenured faculty members across 
the three U-M campuses. Contract 
negotiations between LEO and 
University administrators are still 
underway; the two parties convened 
Friday at a regents’ meeting in 
Dearborn, focusing on gaps in 
lecturer salaries between Ann Arbor, 
Flint and Dearborn.
Lecturers in Ann Arbor are 
paid significantly more than those 
in Flint and Dearborn, and the 
administration’s newest proposal 
would maintain that disparity by 
raising the minimum salary after 
three years to $45,000 in Ann 
Arbor, $37,000 in Dearborn and 
$36,000 in Flint. Annual increases 
and equity adjustments would also 
be higher in Ann Arbor. Though 
LEO organizers are not yet satisfied 
with the proposed raises for Ann 
Arbor lecturers, they are particularly 
unhappy with the University’s offers 
for the other two campuses.

City Council 
continues to 
discuss “Y lot”

By ROB DALKA

For The Daily

 

The Ann Arbor City Council 
voted 9-2 in favor of the new 2019 
fiscal budget Monday evening. The 
decision came after debate of the 
various new amendments including 
Amendment 1, which proposed to set 
aside funds to finance and effectuate 
settlement of the litigation related to 
the former “Y lot” at 350 S. Fifth Ave.
In another installment of the “Y 
lot” saga, the council voted to set 
aside almost $1.3 million from the 
general fund to cover settlement, 
bond insurance and closing costs 
in addition to taxes. The settlement 
comes between the city of Ann 
Arbor and local real estate developer 
Dennis Dahlmann.
Dahlmann sued the city in an 
effort to keep the lot after the city 
had decided to repurchase the 
property for $4.2 million. The lot was 
originally sold in 2014 to Dahlmann 
under a contract that stipulated he 
would redevelop the site within 
four years and build a new mixed-
use building with part dedicated to 
affordable housing. Dahlmann failed 
to do so, thus prompting the city to 
repurchase the lot. Dahlmann claims 
the city made it impossible for him 

to build and filed a lawsuit for legal 
ownership of the lot.
Councilmember 
Chip 
Smith, 
D-Ward 5, who introduced the 
amendment in the meeting, said the 
council was undergoing this action of 
settlement to eliminate any risk of the 
lot being lost in litigation and ensure 
it is used to build affordable housing.
“My concern is that we could end 
up in a worst-case scenario, in which 
the property could be flipped to any 
developer who then could build a 
market-rate development, with the 
limits allowed by zoning,” Smith said. 
“Under that scenario, everyone in the 
community, I believe, loses.”
Councilmember 
Jane 
Lumm, 
I-Ward 2, was opposed to the 
amendment as she saw it as an 
inappropriate use of a budget 
amendment.
During the middle of a fiscal year, 
a decision to allocate funds to pay a 
settlement that was not otherwise 
budgeted – like the proposed 
allocation – would take eight votes. 
However, during a budget meeting it 
only needs six votes to be included in 
the next fiscal year’s budget. Lumm 
had strong words against this motion.
“(The 
amendment) 
uses 
the 
budget as a tool in a little game rather 
than what it should be: a document to 
reflect the priorities of our residents,” 
Lumm said.

Council passes
2019 city budget

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