OTTAWA COUNTY — After a meeting filled with politically charged accusations and procedural confusion, the chair of Ottawa County’s compensation commission said he’s been asked to resubmit determinations from an April meeting that likely was not conducted legally.

Ottawa County Board Chair Joe Moss alleged Tuesday that local Democrat Larry Jackson sabotaged the recent pay rate evaluation process for countywide elected officials — but numerous discrepancies could invalidate a process that experts say was the county administration’s responsibility to follow.

As the May 14 meeting got underway, Moss announced he had removed from the agenda determinations from the county’s compensation commission that, if approved, would have had county commissioners seeing a 60% pay increase and a $1,000-per-month healthcare stipend starting in 2025.

Officercompensationresolution2526185KB ∙ PDF fileDownloadDownload

Moss said he removed the item from consideration because “it was invalid,” saying that some of the commission’s work occurred outside the 45-day window the commission was allowed to make decisions once it convened for the first time in March.

Moss then accused Jackson, current chair of the Ottawa County Democrats, of colluding with local media outlets to potentially interfere with a May 7 special recall election that saw Democrat Chris Kleinjans defeat Ottawa Impact Republican incumbent Lucy Ebel.

"You've been played," Moss told citizens watching in person and online. He called the raise a "phantom increase" and said, referring to local media reporting on resolution — which was publicly posted as part of the commission’s agenda four days earlier — as "clickbait" and "fake news."

“Larry Jackson has a vested interest in Republicans to lose elections," Moss said, calling the situation an example of "election interference" and “collusion.” He went on to say the media "lied to" and "deceived" the public and used "warfare tactics."

"The Democratic liberal media are truly the enemy of the people,” Moss said.

Moss leads Ottawa Impact, a far-right fundamentalist group formed in 2021 over frustrations with county and state COVID-19 mitigation measures that currently has a seven-seat controlling majority on the 11-member board. After coming into power in 2023, the group has made a series of controversial decisions that have led to five lawsuits within 14 months and a brief investigation from the Michigan Attorney General's Office.

Jackson responded to the allegations on Wednesday, saying politics had nothing to do with it and that he and his fellow commissioners acted in good faith.

“Regarding Chair Moss’ unfounded and damaging allegations of misconduct, including accusations of colluding and election interference, I categorically deny these claims,” he said in the statement.

“The Compensation Commission operates within the bounds of its mandated responsibilities, convening every two years as required by law. Meetings were scheduled and transparently listed on the county calendar, with public notice provided on the county website per the law.”

The process, however, was problematic in several ways. Here’s what an independent review found:

What is a compensation commission?

Among the various responsibilities of county boards in Michigan, commissioners are responsible for determining compensation levels for county employees, as well as for themselves and elected officials.

Because pay levels can become a sticky political subject, especially when a board is setting its own compensation, counties have the option of creating a compensation commission to handle the task.

“The point of the compensation committee was to try to get a little bit of expertise to figure out what positions like the clerk and the sheriff make, instead of making it just a political hatchet job or who has the most influence,” said Doug Van Essen, the county’s former longtime corporation counsel. “You try to figure out, among other counties, and the private sector, what's an appropriate wage? With an advisory committee, all the board has to do is take action.”

Ottawa County’s compensation commission was formed in late 2005 and is charged with making recommendations for the compensation of county elected officials in even-numbered years.

A county compensation commission's only responsibility is to set the rate of compensation for county commissioners, the board chair, and other elected county officers, according to the Michigan State University Extension Office’s “Guide to Michigan County Government.”

“By creating the OCC, we had really good people on it, a blend of people — conservative, more liberal, we had the whole bit — and they came to good determinations,” said Al Vanderberg, former longtime Ottawa County administrator who is now the administrator in Kent County

.The statute requires the compensation commission to meet in even-numbered years for not more than 15 "session" days. The commission must complete its work within 45 days of its first session. A majority of the members serving must approve any action and meetings must follow Michigan’s Open Meetings Act.

Jackson was appointed to the seven-member board in 2022 by the previous Republican-controlled board of commissioners.

In December 2023, the OI-controlled board appointed four new members, all supporters of OI:

• Mark Brouwer
• Craig Dunlap
• Angela Loreth
• Lynn Janson

What happened in the meetings

Ottawa County’s seven-member compensation commission first met this year on March 11, setting the 45-day deadline for April 25. In total, the commission met five times, but the first determinations occurred on April 11, when four of the six active commissioners — one resigned after the first meeting — decided three separate determinations to forward to the county board:

• The prosecutor, sheriff, treasurer, clerk/register of deeds, and water resources commissioner shall have a salary increase of 8% effective Jan. 1, 2025, and a salary increase of 6% effective Jan. 1, 2026. (Approved 4-0)
• The chairperson of the Ottawa County Road Commission shall have a salary set to $15,500 per year effective Jan. 1, 2025, and a 0% increase effective Jan. 1, 2026, and all other road commissioners shall have a salary set to $12,500 per year effective Jan. 1, 2025, and a 0% increase effective Jan. 1, 2026. (Approved 4-0)
• The chairperson of the board of commissioners shall have a salary increase of 60% effective Jan. 1, 2025, and a 0% increase effective Jan. 1, 2026. The vice chairperson of the board of commissioners shall have a salary increase of 60% effective Jan. 1, 2025, and a 0% increase effective Jan. 1, 2026. All other commissioners shall have a salary increase of 60% effective Jan. 1, 2025, and a 0% increase effective Jan. 1, 2026. All commissioners shall receive a monthly stipend of $1,000 for purposes of compensation for healthcare coverage. (Approved 3-1)
  

On May 2, the commission met for the final time. With all six commissioners present the following determination was approved unanimously:

• Additional salary increases for the treasurer and water resources commissioner to make their compensation match the clerk/register of deeds effective Jan. 1, 2025, and provide a 6% increase to their salaries effective Jan. 1, 2026.

What are the claims?

Claim: The May 2 meeting was invalid.

Finding: True.

Michigan’s Open Meetings Act requires public bodies “to be open to the public; to require notice and the keeping of minutes of meetings; to provide for enforcement; to provide for invalidation of governmental decisions under certain circumstances; to provide penalties; and to repeal certain acts and parts of acts.

Because the March 11 meeting was properly noticed, it started the time clock, even if no formal decisions were made.

At the May 14 meeting, Moss said the May 2 determination to increase the base pay of the treasurer and water resource commissioner to $122,833 to match that of other countywide positions such as the clerk/register of deeds would be outside the window the commission was allowed to operate.

Kallman Legal Group, which serves as the county’s corporation counsel, agreed with that assessment in a legal opinion provided May 17 to commissioners.

Legal Memo, County Compensation Commission, Final306KB ∙ PDF fileDownloadDownload

“The primary issue with the May 2, 2024, meeting was that it was held after 45 days had elapsed. The first meeting of the commission was held on March 11, 2024, which therefore required all determinations be made on or before April 25, 2024,” according to the opinion.

Claim: The 60% raise for commissioners was invalid.

Finding: True.

Moss said that, of the determinations made at the commission’s April 11 meeting — the increase for county commissioners, an increase for the county road commissioners and an 8% increase for countywide elected officials — the county commissioners vote was problematic because only four compensation commissioners were present and the vote on that measure was a 3-1 split.

According to the statute that governs county compensation commissions: “A majority of the members of the commission constitutes a quorum for conducting the business of the commission. The commission shall not take action or make a determination without a concurrence of a majority of the members appointed and serving on the commission.”

That means that although a four-member quorum was present at the April 11 meeting, because only three compensation commissioners approved it, “a majority of the members appointed and serving” on the commission weren’t in concurrence.

However, there are more legally problematic factors surrounding the commission’s work.

April’s meeting was not properly noticed

In its legal opinion this week, Kallman recommended that a “corrected resolution” be issued “reflecting that the only proper determinations” made on April 11 were the increases for the countywide positions and the road commissioners.

A review of the county’s calendar, however, shows that the April 11 meeting was never properly noticed in accordance to the Open Meetings Act.

According to the OMA, a decision made by a public body may be invalidated by a court if the public body “has not complied with the requirements of MCL 15.263(1), (2), and (3) [i.e., making decisions at a public meeting] or if failure to give notice in accordance with section 5 has interfered with substantial compliance with MCL 15.263(1), (2), and (3), and the court finds that the noncompliance has impaired the rights of the public under the OMA.”

That could mean that the decisions on April 11 are entirely invalidated.

Kallman also recommended to “memorialize the determinations and votes that occurred on April 11, 2024, and prepare written meeting minutes,” despite the fact that minutes were produced.

“They're asking me to write meeting minutes when we already have meeting minutes,” Jackson said. “I don't know if a civilian person is supposed to be typing up meeting minutes for an official county meeting.”

The commission can’t reconvene to fix it

When improper notice issues crop up, public bodies typically redo the meetings properly. Because the compensation commission’s work per state statute is limited to the 45-day window, the body can’t reconvene again until 2026.

When Commissioner Doug Zylstra asked May 14 what the next steps were on the compensation commission’s determinations, Moss said he would entertain a revision at the board’s next meeting May 28.

Zylstra asked if it was legal to send the matter back to the compensation commission, which technically now is disbanded.

“I'm not sending anything back,” Moss said. “I'm asking for something that's valid.”

“I think that the compensation commission, according to the law, did its report on time,” said Field Reichardt, who served on the commission for 12 years and chaired it in 2018 and 2020. “I don't think they can send it back to the commission. I think the commission did its work.”

Jackson agreed.

“If it's wrong, then vote to reject it. They’re asking me to resubmit it by excluding something that was in the meeting. That's not how it works,” he said. “I’m done with my duties.”

The board has options it can exercise

State law defines actions a board of commissioners can take in response to a compensation commission’s determinations:

• Reject the determinations of the commission in whole or in part by a two-thirds majority.

• Accept the determinations.
• Do nothing, in which case, the determinations by the compensation commission will go into effect in 2025.

Rick Martinez, who was vice chair on the compensation commission in 2022, said he had four members on his commission that year. He said it was his understanding that the board of commissioners had choices on how to react to votes.

“My understanding was because we only had four members, regardless of what our vote was, whatever our decision was, that was it, as long as we had a quorum,” he said. “We never tested that, obviously,” referring to the fact that despite having only four commissioners that year, the votes on determinations were unanimous.

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“And it's a recommendation,” he said, to forward to the board. “So, in my understanding, it's either an up or down vote — yes or no, or they can choose not to vote on it, and then it goes into effect by default.

Jackson agreed.

“They're supposed to be making their decision on the recommendation that we make,” he said. “Nowhere in MCL says they make their recommendation on what happened in the meeting.”

If the commission does nothing, what happens?

Opinions vary widely on this question.

Mark Brewer, an attorney currently suing the county board of commissioners for alleged OMA violations in 2023, said the way he reads the statute, the 3-1 vote could be void.

“My view is that since the commission’s vote didn’t satisfy the second sentence of MCL 45.474(2), the commission never made a “determination” which could take effect. Any one of them could have exercised veto power,” he said.

That would align with KLG’s opinion, which said that because “no proper determinations were made,” the board didn’t need to take action.

That could create a future legal problem, according to Vanderberg, former longtime county administrator.

“If they don't vote at all, it automatically goes into effect on Jan. 1,” he said of the compensation commission’s determinations. “It was voted 3-1,” he said of the 60% raise, “but somebody has to contest it. If nobody contests it, then bad things can happen.”

Vanderberg said the compensation committee’s findings are “determination,” not “recommendations.”

“It's a determination to the board of commissioners. It's their choice whether to accept or reject the determination in whole or in part,” he said. “If they fail to act, then the determination automatically goes into effect on the following Jan. 1.”

Vanderberg said there’s no reason for the board to not vote the invalid measures down to ensure that future problems don’t crop up.

“I think the danger is, that it could all go into effect if they don't vote on it,” Vanderberg said. “Somebody needs to make an issue out of it. And the right thing to do, really, is kill it. Make sure the board rejects that one recommendation, and they have all the way up until Dec. 31.”

Reichardt said he thinks Moss is playing political games.

“My take is that there was such a negative reaction that the Ottawa Impact people don't know what to do,” he said. “It looks to me like Ottawa Impact realizes that they opened a can of worms here and they're trying to put the worms back in the can.”

Whose responsibility was it to make sure the process was followed?

In the May 14 meeting, Moss blamed Jackson for not being aware of the state law requirements for the commission to be in compliance.

Vanderberg, however, said it’s up to the administration to ensure meetings are properly noticed and conducted in a way that complies with all the statutory obligations.

“It’s the county,” he said. “The county administrator is responsible.”

Commissioner Jacob Bonnema, who split from OI in March last year, asked Interim County Administrator Jon Anderson how the flawed resolution made it to the board’s agenda if it wasn’t accurate.

“Who has the final say on what makes it on the agenda?” he asked.

Anderson said typically the chairs on the board’s various subcommittees forward items to advance to the greater body.

The compensation commission, however, is comprised of citizens — a departure of the other subcommittees.

“So when we're looking at things, whose responsibility is it that what we're considering follows the statute?”

“Administration,” Anderson said.

“So you're ultimately responsible.”

Jackson said Deputy Administrator Ben Wetmore and county administrative aide Jordan Epperson attended the meetings, and that he wasn’t provided any guidance on how to conduct the commission’s business other than a printout of the statute.

Both Martinez and Reichardt, who account for the past three cycles of the commission’s work, said previous administrators provided binders of research, ensured meetings were properly noticed and took minutes.

Jackson said the situation has been frustrating.

“I don't work for the county. I just came in to make a recommendation off the information that I received. I made that recommendation. And then the county commission chair grandstanded when it's not even on the agenda,” he said, referring to Moss’ Tuesday comments.

“This is all wrong,” he said.

Reichardt went a step further and blamed Anderson.

“This is the fault of the county attorneys and Interim Administrator Jon Anderson,” he said.

— Contact Sarah Leach at SentinelLeach@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @SentinelLeach. Subscribe to her content at sentinelleach.substack.com.