Documents reveal a third high-ranking Michigan official was paid five figures in exchange for resigning.
Michigan’s former Unemployment Insurance Agency Director Steve Gray was given $85,872 in a separation agreement signed in November 2020 to resign. The deal, obtained by MLive, includes a confidentiality clause and requires Gray to “release all claims” against the state.
Gray’s $85,872 represents pay from Nov. 6, 2020 through June 1, 2021.
“Both parties agree that they will not make any statements or take any action disparaging the reputation of the other, whether written or oral,” the separation agreement states, in addition to the confidentiality clause.
The agreement is similar to the one Robert Gordon signed, in exchange for leaving his role as Michigan Department of Health and Human Services director. Gordon received $155,506 in his deal, which also had a confidentiality clause.
Sarah Esty received four weeks pay – about $12,000 – in her separation agreement with the state in January. Esty was the senior deputy director for policy and planning administration for MDHHS.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was asked if these separations should be considered “hush money,” at her Tuesday, March 2 news conference.
“I really bristle at that characterization,” Whitmer said.
Gray took the UIA director position in June 2019. Before that, he managed the University of Michigan Law School Unemployment Insurance Clinic and was a legal aid lawyer before that.
Gray took a job last month as senior counsel with the National Employment Law Project working on unemployment reform efforts.
“I am very excited to join the UI team at NELP and to get to work on strengthening our UI system,” Gray said in a news release last month. “The pandemic-induced economic crisis has exposed structural inequities in our unemployment insurance system. NELP has been a national leader on UI reform, and I look forward to working with the team and NELP partners to patch these holes and build a strong UI system.”
Michigan’s UIA paid out about $26 billion to jobless workers in 2020. But the agency struggled to keep up with call volumes when the pandemic hit, despite hiring more staff. Many were wrongfully denied unemployment for months.
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One month before resigning, Gray told MLive the pandemic had “exposed some of the barriers and cracks we had in the system.”
He wasn’t immune from the stories of people denied benefits – and the impact that had on families.
“That breaks my heart,” Gray told MLive in October. “As a claimant advocate who spent his life trying to make sure everybody who’s eligible gets the benefits, I understand the bind that not getting paid benefits puts people in better I think than most – because those were my clients for most of my career. It’s why I’m doing this job during this pandemic.”
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