Town in MI going bankrupt; still gives out 3% union raises

City of Hamtramck officials say the city is “dead broke” and will run out of money sometime in March. Yet city documents show that 11 police department employees were paid overtime of between $24,000 and $34,460 during 2010.

Hamtramck City Manager Bill Cooper said that the overtime was part of a new “traffic enforcement” program that paid for itself “four or five times over.”

The city also had eight more people on payroll in 2010 compared to 2007 and saw total payroll climb from $7.3 million in 2007 to $7.9 million in 2010, not including benefits. While Hamtramck considered bankruptcy, it gave its union workers annual raises of 2 to 3 percent.