Retired Police Woman Has Made $200,000 + Annually
Leading newspaper says public servants, like her, are ‘losing their foothold in the middle class’
Sherry Woods worked for the city of Ann Arbor’s police department for 25 years before retiring as a deputy chief in 2001.
But like many people in law enforcement, her career didn’t end with retirement from a long-term job.
Woods receives a $100,248 annual pension from the city of Ann Arbor. She also works for the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office as a commander and chief deputy, a position she started in 2010.
According to that public agency, Woods’ salary the last three years was $107,589 (2015), $108,039 (2016) and $88,869 (2017).
In April, The New York Times published a story with the headline, “Public Servants Are Losing Their Foothold In The Middle Class” that claimed public sector employees find themselves “financially downgraded.”
Michigan Capitol Confidential is using the Freedom of Information Act to get financial data from municipalities and school districts to highlight how the public sector is doing in this state. The information for this story came from FOIA requests submitted to the city of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County.
Public sector salaries from every state in the country are available online. OpenTheBooks.com is a nonprofit that has posted several years’ worth of salary data for nearly every government worker in the country. The website continually updates its salary information with Freedom of Information Act requests.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.