Ka-CHING!

Back in November, the Snyder administration gave selected members of its staff in the Department of Treasury astonishingly large raises. It was needed, they said, to attract the best and the brightest to the positions (despite the fact that these people were already in these positions.) One guy, the state’s chief investment officer Jon Braeutigam, got a 90% pay raise to $333,000 a year from $175,000. Wow!

All told, the raises, along with $380,000 in incentive bonuses for other staffers, cost Michigan taxpayers an additional $748,000 a year.

Now you can add another $175,000 a year to that. Why? Because former state Treasurer Andy Dillon who left his position last November is still collecting his full salary as a consultant.

More than two months after he stepped down as state treasurer in a move intended to quiet ongoing controversies in his personal and political life, Andy Dillon sparked a new uproar Wednesday after officials revealed he is still collecting his full salary of nearly $175,000. Dillon started Nov. 1 — the day his resignation as treasurer became effective — as a senior adviser to his successor, Kevin Clinton, Treasury Department spokesman Terry Stanton said. […] Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said retaining Dillon was “instrumental and appropriate” because of the “complexity and urgency of local government fiscal health issues under way in Detroit and other parts of the state.”

Fortunately the situation is temporary and Dillon will be on his way “in a few weeks”.

It’s a good thing. Our Treasury Department is starting to get really expensive.