After a Michigan Supreme Court ruling, the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office can fill four positions that had been the center of a budget dispute with Prosecutor Peter Lucido and the county commission on one side and the county executive on the other.
The July 22 ruling denied the request of Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel to appeal a unanimous Court of Appeals decision that said the board of commissioners “may adopt an independent budget and that defendant Hackel exceeded his authority by impounding the $299,300 appropriated funds at issue.”
“This is a victory for Macomb County taxpayers and provides clarity going forward,” said Lucido. “Now that this matter is resolved, I truly hope we can meet with the county executive to productively work together on behalf of all Macomb County residents.”
The Supreme Court also accepted the county board of commissioners’ legal brief in support of Lucido.
The four positions are part-time file clerk, part-time intern coordinator, full-time executive administrative assistant, and full-time communications director.
Lucido said he already had requested that the four jobs be posted.
The court’s one-sentence order was accompanied by a three-page concurring opinion by Justice David Viviano.
Viviano focused on whether the prosecutor’s office was “a division of county government and therefore constitutes a branch.”
The critical question in this case, Viviano said, was whether Lucido, “in his capacity as the Macomb County prosecutor, has standing to bring this action as an ‘elected official who heads a branch of county government ...”
“There is no dispute that he is an elected official and that he heads Macomb County’s prosecutors office,” Viviano continued. “So the issue boils down to whether that office is a branch of county government. At least to those who have attended government class, the notion that a local prosecutor’s office is an entire branch of government sounds odd.
“A ‘branch’ of government generally calls to mind the legislative, executive and judicial branches. That is how our Constitution talks about them, for example, in the context of state government.”
Though he concurred with the top court’s decision, Viviano said “the statutory language at issue might benefit from being revisited by the Legislature.”
The Court of Appeals issued its original ruling in March in the case in which Lucido argued the county board was permitted to adopt a budget that differed from the one recommended by Hackel and that Hackel and the board did not have the authority to impound the funds Lucido sought.
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