If you think you’ve gotten the accurate story from the Clarkston News article about the police payment issue, trust me – you haven’t.
The same people who want you to vote for a 7-mill increase in taxes for “public safety” – that has everything to do with freeing up general fund money to spend on other things and nothing to do with more or better public safety – are STILL effing up payments under the police contract. The city manager doesn’t share contracts with the treasurer. The treasurer doesn’t take the initiative to ask the city manager for a copy of the police/fire/emergency medical services (EMS) contracts (or any other contract that requires we pay for something), hasn’t read the contracts, doesn’t double-check whether the invoices are correct before paying them, and doesn’t ask for backup for any of the invoices he pays. And this on the largest and most important city expenses in its budget. Get invoice. Automatically write check. And, if it’s not right, well, it’s just taxpayer money.
It was entirely appropriate for our city treasurer to describe this latest screw up as a SNAFU because the acronym literally means “Situation Normal, All F*cked Up.” There is not a more apt description of what has been happening with the police payment issue.
A brief recap is in order to understand why these latest events are inexcusable (and you can find a more detailed explanation here).
Two years ago, my husband uncovered what should have been a huge scandal – negligent city employee police/fire/EMS overpayments to Independence Township that had been going on forever. After digging into it further and having to rely on township records because the city had destroyed all records older than seven years, the city told us the police and fire overpayments had gone on for fourteen years. That’s right – for fourteen years, our city treasurers wrote checks for quarterly police and fire invoices to Independence Township without ever confirming the billing was correct, even though police and fire expenses are the costliest part of the city’s budget (and represented more than 1/3 of the expenses budget in 2024 when the overpayments were discovered).
At that time, the city manager didn’t realize that Clarkston contracts for police services through Independence Township. He erroneously told a council member that Clarkston contracted directly with the Oakland County Sheriff. That prompted my FOIA request for a copy of the police contract because the city manager’s claim surprised me. And that FOIA request led to the discovery of the overpayments. The city couldn’t provide a copy of the contract because it didn’t have a copy(!) so I had to ask Independence Township for it. Had the city had a copy of the contract and read it, the city manager and treasurer would have learned what the agreed-upon formula was for police, fire, and emergency medical services. The boneheads in the accounts receivable department at the township apparently didn’t read the contract either, because they billed Clarkston for more than the contract called for – for fourteen years. They asked, we paid – who cares, right? I think the higher burden was on Clarkston employees to verify that the invoices were correct before paying them because tax dollars are at stake.
My husband read the contract, looked at publicly available information on Oakland County’s website, discovered the overcharge, and immediately notified the city. The total amount of the overpayment was $171,799.59. Both the city manager and treasurer were actively involved in meeting with township officials to calculate the overpayment. When the smoke cleared, Independence Township refused to give the city any more than it would have gotten in a lawsuit, which was significantly less than we overpaid. The statute of limitations on a lawsuit was six years, so the city couldn’t have sued to get back the full fourteen years of overpayments.
Why wasn’t this a scandal? Your city council tried its very best to sweep the city employee negligence under the rug by having as many discussions as possible in secret closed sessions outside of the public’s view. We received no notice that settlement was being discussed to allow us to ask questions or express objections. We didn’t get to know how much of our overpaid tax dollars were deemed unrecoverable. The city pushed back on my FOIA request for copies of email discussions between the Clarkston and Independence Township attorneys under a false claim of privilege (the emails weren’t privileged because the lawyers were opposed to each other). When your city council decided it was done with the matter, it settled in secret for a secret amount. We eventually learned the city settled for six years of overpayments ($87,301.93) plus interest ($8,917.64), bringing the total to $96,219.57. Shirking its responsibility, your city council failed to insist on a formal policy change for handling invoice payments that would prevent the problem from reoccurring in the future and made no further inquiry to spot check what was happening after the settlement. Taxpayers lost $84,497.66 (before interest), and the city council was apparently more interested in protecting city employees than you.
Everyone in city hall blamed Independence Township and made excuses to deflect from the Clarkston negligence, even though our incumbent employees were responsible for the majority of the overpayments (eight of the fourteen years). One council member exclaimed, “probably 99.9% of the people in [the city manager’s] same spot would have done exactly the same thing.” So, a newly-hired treasurer and city manager would not want to review the contracts relating to the largest expense the city has to get an idea how we were being charged and fail to double-check even one invoice in eight years? Really? I certainly would have done that as part of learning the job and making sure what I authorized for payment was accurate.
The city manager made an appearance at the Independence Township board meeting when the settlement was approved to complain about the $84,497.66 (plus interest) we weren’t getting reimbursed for. He said the whole debacle was entirely the fault of Independence Township because they billed us for the incorrect amount. The city manager said the township provided no “detail” or backup for the invoices and waived an invoice in front of the township board of trustees in support of his claim. He stated:
I know you’ve said several times, well, the city screwed up here too. They missed this. No, we didn’t. We didn’t have your millage rates. We didn’t know this. So, unless we came to the township and asked what are the millage rates you’re charging your township, and then we go back and we could have done that, but this invoice comes from you.
(You can see the whole blame-the-township-and-beg speech here, beginning at video time mark 2:02:31). The city manager gave the same excuse to the city council and the public at the August 12, 2024, city council meeting.
I once had a supervisor who often used to say of explanations – “those are reasons, not excuses.” And that fits here. The city manager can provide all the reasons he can say with a straight face, but the fact remains that Clarkston employees overpaid $171,799.59 for police/fire/EMS and squandered $84,497.66 of taxpayer dollars in overpayments we were unable to recover – and there is simply no excuse for that.
You’ve got to give the city manager credit. When he comes up with a reason for his mistakes or the mistakes of his staff, he’s all in. Of course the negligent overpayments were the city’s fault. The operative word is “overpayment.” No one held a gun to any treasurer’s head to force him or her to pay an erroneous invoice without double checking it. During the most recent eight of the fourteen years of overpayments (or the six years before that), if the city manager or treasurer wanted the township’s millage rates to confirm the billed amounts were correct, either one of them could have picked up the phone and asked Independence Township for the information. Or they could have checked the township website for the millage rates. Independence Township board meetings are recorded, they establish millage rates each year in a public meeting (just as Clarkston does), and they publish their millage rates on their website. This is not secret information! And frankly, even if the city manager and treasurer had the missing backup they claimed was the reason they made the overpayments, they wouldn’t have known what to do with it because they didn’t have a contract in the office that explained how the city was supposed to be charged, so they obviously had never read it and backup describing how the rates were calculated wouldn’t have helped identify the billing error.
So, who was held responsible for the negligent loss of over $84,497.66 in taxpayer funds? No one. Your city council accepted the city manager’s proffered reasons for this royal screwup without question. No one was written up for misconduct. The $171,799.59 police and fire overpayment matter was concluded in late summer 2024 and the city received $96,219.57 for six years of overpayments plus interest. Less than a year later, the city council rewarded the city manager with a $13,000/year raise, increased the treasurer’s salary to the top of his salary range, broke an express (forever) promise to taxpayers about our .691 library millage rollback, and raised our taxes by that same .691 mills to pay for the increase in salaries and benefits for all six city employees, including the treasurer and city manager.
Is it fair to hold the city manager responsible when it’s the treasurer who pays the bills? Yes. And he agrees. When demanding his $13,000 increase at the May 27, 2025, city council meeting, the city manager said:
Paying the one employee higher than the others, maybe it’s done on sports teams, but in the municipal world, even in the business world, rarely do you have the CEO making less than a worker out on the floor. They are always hierarchical, and for a reason. I carry, if something goes wrong on the clerk, it falls on my shoulders. Yes, the clerk will have some explaining to do, but ultimately it’s on my shoulders. I have that responsibility. That’s the reason for the salary hierarchy, is because as you go up the chain, you carry more and more weight on your shoulders. So, I disagree with a thought, let’s raise the clerk to this level, but let’s leave the manager at this level. I’m opposed to that. If that’s the direction the decision would go, I would respectfully resign.
So, after having escaped any consequences for a major eff up, you’d think the treasurer would be sure to familiarize himself with the terms of whatever the current contract is, double-check all bills before paying them, and the city manager would be doing more oversight of the treasurer.
And you would be wrong.
During the first half of 2025, the township asked the city to renegotiate the police contract. You should know that a couple of the township officials were angry about the overpayment issue because the calculation under the then-existing contract treated Clarkston residents more favorably than Independence Township residents. The invoicing error on Independence Township’s part originated in its accounts receivable staff apparently believing the rates charged were the same for the city and the township. That explains some of the harsher language and the extra costs in the police contract. But since the city refuses to look for any alternative for law enforcement services, we need to take whatever the township dishes out.
The fire contract charges to Clarkston in the latest contract are still based on Independence Township millage rates and billed quarterly, but the formula under the current police contract was changed and the billing was supposed to be switched to monthly. Our police services payments are now supposed to be 2.7% of the total cost of law enforcement services the township pays to the county. The city must pay a $300/month administrative overhead charge. Payments later than 30 days from the invoice date can be assessed a 1% interest penalty each month until payment is received (for a maximum interest rate of 12% per year).
Once again, my husband deserves the credit for catching a problem with police services payments. He discovered the error by listening to Rana Emmons’s comments at the August 10, 2026, city council meeting. Emmons is the city’s contract auditor, and she was invited to the meeting to try to justify putting the 7-mill “public safety” millage on the ballot. My husband also reviewed a chart Emmons distributed at the meeting that was shared only with the city council. (I had to send a FOIA request to see a copy.)
Emmons erroneously claimed both the police and fire contracts were based on the township’s millages and that Clarkston residents are paying the same rate as Independence Township residents. This is true for fire services but not police services. Because her assumptions were incorrect, so were her conclusions. Emmons also failed to apply a Headlee rollback to the Independence Township millage rates but did apply it to Clarkston’s proposed millage rates, making her total assumptions about the amount of millage the city should ask for incorrect. (The Headlee amendment to the Michigan constitution limits the dollar amount the city and township can collect in millage to the original amount approved by voters plus a small increase for inflation each year.)
Emmons claimed to know what was in the city contracts. Was she provided a copy? Or was she parroting bad information she received from a city employee when she told the city council and public that the police and fire contracts calculated our fees in the same way? You know the old saying – garbage in, garbage out. Emmons used bad data to support the city’s claim it needed a 7-mill “public safety” millage. We learned more facts after I sent a letter notifying the city council that my husband had reviewed Emmons’s calculations for the council – that were part of their vote to put the 7-mill “public safety” proposal on the ballot – and we explained why they were wrong.
I also sent a FOIA request asking for the latest quarterly invoice for fire/EMS services and the latest monthly invoice for police services. I was provided with the latest invoice sent by Independence Township and the city manager said that “police services are invoiced quarterly at the same time as fire/EMS services.” I replied, explaining that the police contract uses a different formula, was to be billed monthly, and the bill should also include an administrative fee (something he was apparently unaware of).
Since we were assured that the problem with the overpayments in 2024 was a lack of backup, I asked for any backup that was included with the police/fire/EMS invoice I’d been provided – because surely the city was insisting that backup be provided, given the overpayment issue. I was advised there was no backup provided with that invoice. I sent a FOIA asking for all other invoices for police and fire since June 2025 to get invoices relating to the current police contract (which apparently would be only three more if Independence Township was invoicing quarterly) plus any backup from the township and any calculations performed by the city to double check the numbers. I received the three additional invoices, a backup explanation from the township that the city just received on September 8, 2026, and some calculations that the treasurer prepared for the August 24, 2026, city council meeting. That confirmed the city wasn’t asking for – or receiving – backup for the invoices the treasurer was blithely paying even though the lack of backup was supposedly the sole reason we overpaid the township for fourteen years.
The August 24, 2026, city council meeting:
The police services contract appeared on the August 24, 2026, city council meeting agenda as a topic, but there was no mention of my husband’s work or my FOIA during the discussion. If you listen to the meeting, you might be under the impression that the city manager or treasurer discovered the problem. They didn’t. If I hadn’t sent a FOIA follow up or a letter to the city describing the problem, the “SNAFU” would have continued.
At the August 24, 2026, city council meeting, the city manager discussed the new police contract and said that this agreement had been worked out between Independence Township and himself. He was obviously aware of the new police contract terms. The city council approved the police and fire/EMS contracts at its June 23, 2025, meeting. City council authorized the city manager to sign the agreements, he signed them, sent them to the township for signature, didn’t follow up, forgot about the matter, and apparently failed to walk a few steps to the treasurer’s desk to discuss the billing changes in the new police contract. The township board approved the police contract at its July 22, 2025, meeting.
And the bills continued as before – quarterly invoices for police and fire/EMS apparently based on millage even though that’s not what was in the police contract. (I use the word “apparently” because we now know the township provided no backup for the invoices the city blindly paid.) I guess no one at the township involved in creating the invoices knew about the new contract terms because they continued to bill as they always did. The Clarkston treasurer never double-checked the billed amounts to see if they matched the new contract terms that he claimed to be unaware of, but he also didn’t double-check the billed amounts to see if they were consistent with the old contract either because the city was unable to provide me with any calculations to support that he’d checked as the bills were received and there are no notations on the invoices. The township provided no back up with any of the invoices following the new police/fire/EMS contract approval by the city council. That’s even though we were told that, gosh darn it, if backup had been provided, the fourteen years of overpayments would not have occurred.
After we brought the most recent invoicing problem to the city’s attention through my letter and FOIA request, and the city brought it to the township’s attention, the township claimed not to have received the city manager’s email forwarding the contract he signed. If you were wondering how the city and township could eff things up for fourteen years, this is how it happens.
(Though not discussed at the August 24, 2026, city council meeting, the township was obviously aware the city had signed the contract because the township attorney and some of the board members mentioned it during their July 22, 2025, board meeting at the time the contract was approved. The township board also voted to rewrite a clause in one of the contracts regarding overpayments to make the police, fire/EMS, and building contracts all the same. The township attorney said he’d draft an amendment, send it to the city for review and approval, and he anticipated the matter would be resolved within two weeks. I doubt that happened either. We’re not aware of any record of any amendments to any of the three contracts.)
Thinking fast, the city manager suggested perhaps we had a good reason to ignore the new police contract terms because maybe we don’t really have a contract for police services since the township didn’t sign it. From his meeting comments:
[S]hould I have caught that? Should [the treasurer] have caught that? How should that have been caught? Yeah, we could take some responsibility in that we didn’t catch this, but on the other hand, we don’t seem to have, on the surface here, we don’t seem to have an agreement. We don’t have two parties signing the agreement. So, do we have an agreement?
The city attorney advised there is an agreement for police services, it’s been implemented, there was a meeting of the minds, we’ve been receiving police services, and we’ve been paying Independence Township for those services – the only issue is the incorrect invoice amount. I agree with the city attorney and would add that no one who would have signed this agreement had any independent authority to bind the township or the city, so the absence of their signatures changed nothing. The authority to make a contract rests with the township board and the city council and once both public bodies approved the contract, a binding contract was created with terms both had approved.
The city manager also blamed the city’s failure to double-check invoices before paying them on the kerfuffle earlier in the year when the township supervisor said he was going to cancel all contracts with the city, something he has no authority to do. So, I guess the city manager was trying to say no one in Clarkston is to blame for the current debacle because we don’t have a contract, but if we do have a contract, then it was cancelled – even though no action was taken to cancel it. But just as the township board must approve all contracts, the township board would have to approve all exits from contracts according to the contract terms. The township supervisor has no independent authority to do any of this.
Again, these are creative reasons, not excuses. The city manager was unaware there was a problem with police payments until my husband and I brought it to the city’s attention. The two proffered reasons suggested as excuses were just part of another after-the-fact Hail Mary pass to avoid any city employee responsibility for completely effing up police services payments again. When you don’t make sure the person writing the checks understands the terms of a new agreement, these excuses really don’t fly.
The police contract allows the township to keep any overpayments Clarkston makes due to a billing error if the city doesn’t discover the overpayment and notify the township in writing within 60 days. The contract places the burden for discovering invoicing errors on Clarkston: “In the event Clarkston fails to timely provide written notice of an error or in the event the error in payment is attributable to Clarkston, the overpayment shall be retained by Independence. In that regard, Clarkston assumes full responsibility for ensuring the accuracy of any payment and agrees that Independence shall not be obligated to provide any reimbursement or credit for overpayments.” (Bolding is mine.) Since the city manager negotiated this agreement, he would have been fully aware of this clause and should have emphasized to the treasurer how important it was to double-check the invoices that he knows are sent directly to the treasurer. He apparently didn’t do that, and the treasurer – even knowing that his own previous errors resulted in a loss of tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars – didn’t ask to review the contracts or request any backup information from the township to double-check the invoiced amounts.
Now that the contract formula has been brought to the city’s attention – by us – our treasurer worked out the math and determined that we have been underpaying the township. But we just as easily could have been overpaying – neither the city manager nor the treasurer double-checked the police and fire invoicing from the township to know one way or the other until we raised the issue. And if we’d been overpaying for the last year, we would not be able to ask for any overpayment made that’s older than 60 days under the terms of the contract.
The treasurer had some suggestions for avoiding these issues in the future:
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- He wanted to be involved in and review all contracts in the future. But he was involved in calculating the $171,799.59 overpayment so he damned well knew he should be double-checking invoices. He received no discipline for the overpayments, so he just continued on as he had been – paying whatever was put in front of him without reading the contract or double-checking the invoiced amounts. As for getting copies of contracts, maybe he could take the initiative to lift his butt off his chair and walk ten steps to the city manager’s office and ask for them. I’ll bet that if he emailed the city manager and asked for a copy of a contract, the city manager could have sent him a pdf copy so he wouldn’t even have to lift his butt to see a copy of the contract.
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- He wanted all contracts to include a sample invoice. Oh, you mean you want back up? Are we repeating the excuse the city manager used last time when we were overpaying rather than underpaying?
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- He thought that once a contract is signed by the other side, it should be included in a council packet. So, how does this part of the proposal work when his boss “forgets” to follow up to get a signed copy? Who double-checks that?
The treasurer passed out some calculations at the meeting that were not shared with the public to show that our underpayments to the township amount to around $15,000 at this point. When a council member asked if he’d taken a look at the fire contract payments and confirmed they were also accurate, he responded that he hadn’t seen the fire contract. Why the hell not? And maybe his boss, who was aware there was a new fire contract that was approved by the council at the same time as the police contract, could have lifted his own butt from his own chair and provided the treasurer with a copy. If you’ve ever seen the inside of the city office, you’d realize it’s not that big and doesn’t require that many steps to walk from one end to the other.
And though the city manager seemed relieved we hadn’t overpaid the township this time, he ignored the fact that there is a penalty for underpaying. The contract states: “Payment by Clarkston is due within thirty (30) days from the invoice date. In the event Clarkston fails to make payment within the specified 30-day period, Independence may assess interest at the rate of 1% per month (12% annually) on the outstanding balance until payment is received.”
Translation: This current eff up is also costing taxpayers money. While it’s entirely possible the township may waive the interest cost, it isn’t required to. And, given its previous refusal to refund the full amount of the city’s overpayment by relying on a technical legal defense and the township supervisor’s virulent hostility to the city, why would the township waive payment of anything it is entitled to get from the city?
My brain simply freezes every time I contemplate the fact that the same thing happened again and no one at city hall cares! I was a government employee for a long time after previously spending a lot of years in the private sector. There was one period of time during my government employment that I went without getting a salary increase because of my employer’s financial condition. But not once did I “phone it in” with regard to doing the job I was paid to do. We constantly hear whining about employee salaries and benefits at budget time, but one must ask what value are we getting in exchange when almost half of every tax dollar we send to city hall to support Clarkston government goes to employee salaries, benefits, government-required payments, conferences, and dues – and something like this happens again? Clarkston taxpayers have even paid for treasurer training through the Michigan Municipal Treasurers Association. But even without the training, when you’ve actually seen what happens when you don’t double-check police and fire invoices for accuracy, why on earth would you not be checking police and fire invoices for accuracy?
No training will fix this and there is no acceptable reason that excuses this conduct. The treasurer should at least receive a written warning, and the council should demand that the city manager prepare a policy for handling invoice payments for their review and approval.
No more excuses!