2 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. 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