Many Michigan local governments and state institutions are using contract provisions that let them pay certain employees more than twice their base salary through overtime, bonuses or payouts of unused comp time or sick leave.

The University of Michigan claimed in 2020 it was freezing the base salaries of all its employees.

But when a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request was submitted for documents showing the gross pay of its employees, U-M officials refused, claiming the law only requires them to turn over base salary records. The requested documents would indicate whether some employees received bonuses or extra pay beyond base salary increases that had been frozen.

In response, the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation sued, demanding the university provide complete compensation records from its Office of Institutional Equity.

This week, the Michigan Court of Claims turned back the university’s claim.

Mackinac Center attorney Steve Delie commended the ruling. “Michiganders deserve transparency and responsiveness from our government and the public institutions subsidized with our hard-earned tax dollars,” he said. “We are pleased that the court upheld the cause of open government in this case and defended the public’s interests.”

A state law says that public entities, including universities, “shall upon request make available to the public the salary records of an employee or other official of the institution of higher education, school district, intermediate school district, or community college.”

U-M has argued that a definition of salary as defined in the dictionary, “fixed compensation paid regularly for services,” does not include bonuses and overtime. The court disagreed, noting that state law refers to “salary records,” which entails salary and other forms of compensation, including bonuses and overtime. It held that the Legislature’s intent was for all forms of compensation to be covered by the law.

The university has 21 days to appeal the ruling, according to Delie. He said, “The University of Michigan — indeed, all public institutions — needs to respect that government employee compensation information is a matter of public record.”

University of Michigan spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said U-M was still considering its next steps.

It has been more than a decade since Michigan officials promoted Sweden’s role in this state’s efforts to replicate what the media had dubbed the “world’s greenest country.” Newspapers across the U.S. reported in October 2010 that Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden had praised Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm for her work in promoting clean energy.

The news hook was a state subsidy for a company called Swedish Biogas. In 2008, the Detroit Free Press reported the firm would open a plant in Flint to “turn human waste into energy that could power city-owned vehicles.”

The report added, “Swedish Biogas already has a similar plant in Linkoping, Sweden, a town nearly the same size as Flint.”

On Sept. 26, 2008, the Swedish king and Michigan governor attended an event to mark Swedish Biogas as the state’s first recipient of “Centers of Energy Excellence” subsidies. The state gave the company a $4 million grant, and it received another $951,500 in federal money. Reports said $6 million more in private money went to the project.

Two years later, a 2010 Granholm press release proclaimed companies such as Swedish Biogas would transform the state economy, and the company could expand to other cities.

Swedish Biogas International declared that Kettering University in Flint would be its North American headquarters, with ventures “setting the stage for Flint to be the launching point for expanding the use of this technology throughout Michigan and North America.”

The grander vision never materialized.

Today, Swedish Biogas is a distant memory, even to those who were originally dubbed as partners.

“Had to do a lot of digging on this one!” said Crystal Garcia-Tyler, communications director at Kettering University, the private institution formerly known as General Motors Institute.

Garcia-Tyler had been asked earlier this year to verify if Swedish Biogas was still involved with the university.

“From our understanding, the company pulled out of the project in which we were connected through research being conducted at Kettering at the time. For a short period of time, Swedish Biogas did lease space at the Innovation Center, but has long since left,” Garcia-Tyler said in an email.

The proposed expansion of a plant in Reed City in 2010 also never happened.

After the initial coverage prompted by the king’s visit, Swedish Biogas fell off the media radar. This has been a common pattern for state-subsidized energy projects, after their early press releases garner much attention.

At some point, perhaps 2011, Swedish Biogas International abandoned its Flint operations. Chad Antle, who had been leading the work in Flint, started a new company called BioWorks Energy and continued the project.

A 2013 report by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation stated that the Flint project had created one full-time job. Earlier projections called for 15 jobs by 2012.

In 2013, a story from the statewide news site MLive said the decline in Flint’s population was slowing the growth of Swedish Biogas.

In an email sent earlier this year, Antle said that he purchased Swedish Biogas and rebranded it as BioWorks Energy. Antle said he currently has four full-time employees and several part-time ones.

Documents from the city of Flint suggest that BioWorks Energy saves the city between $346,000 to $587,000 a year by producing biogas fuel from sewage.