City Council President Michael Sareini (left) speaks about former Police Chief Ronald Haddad’s retiree health care request at the March 17 City Council Committee of the Whole meeting, as Councilmembers Leslie Herrick, Ken Paris and Mustapha Hammoud; Mayor Abdullah Hammoud; and City Attorney Jeremy Romer listen.
Ronald Haddad
His Detroit PD benefits were lost during city’s bankruptcy
By SUE SUCHYTA
Times-Herald Newspapers
Former Police Chief Ronald Haddad’s retiree health care benefit request, which he said former Mayor John O’Reilly Jr. verbally approved, will come before the City Council during its March 22 meeting.
When Haddad was hired by the city in 2008 to be its police chief, he did not seek health care benefits, because as a retiree of the Detroit Dolice Department, he was covered. However, that benefit was lost when the city of Detroit went through its bankruptcy.
Had Haddad not waived the benefit initially, he would have qualified for retiree health care on his separation date.
He also is requesting a payout for his forfeited paid time off, which he said the nature of his job prevented him from taking, and for his accumulated sick leave.
City Attorney Jeremy Romer recommended that the retiree health care benefit and a police department retirement card be approved, but not the compensation for the unused PTO and sick leave.
Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said the request comes down to a discussion of what was or was not promised verbally to Haddad.
“The reality is, we cannot call the former mayor to come before us and have a conversation. We all know why,” he said. “And so, from my perspective, our police chief that left in good principle, we didn’t have a falling out of any sort, and a police chief that served us for over a decade, we would offer retiree health care coverage.”
Hammoud said the cost of providing retiree health care coverage for Haddad is approximately $3,300 a year.
City Councilmember Erin Byrnes said she did not think that having a verbal instead of a written agreement was a typical situation for a city employee or a member of the Police Department.
“My concern here is it doesn’t sound like former Chief Haddad had anything in writing to this end, and I am worried about potentially opening a floodgate and setting a precedent,” she said. “What do we have in place now to prevent something like this from potentially happening in the future?”
Romer said this benefit will not be an issue for the city in the future, because no employees are eligible for it anymore, whether it is a newly hired director or a newly hired city employee.
Byrnes said she hopes, in the future, that the city closes any loopholes so it doesn’t find itself in this position again.