When his compensation from two current government jobs is included, Lorenzo’s pension and pay reaches nearly $300,000 a year.
According to a published report, Lorenzo is among a select group of 49 public sector retirees who pocket pensions in excess of $100,000 a year.
Lorenzo said this morning that his retirement pay is all “above board” and based on the same pension formula that applies to approximately 500,000 retired Michigan educators. His pension is so high, he said, because he worked 42 years at MCC, including 29 years as president, which put his computations far above other educators.
“It’s computed by a factor that’s impersonal, it’s purely quantitative,” said Lorenzo, 68. “It’s … driven completely by a formula, not something I negotiated.”
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, The Detroit News found that many of the top pensions in the state belong to retired community college presidents and intermediate school district officials.
The retiree closest to Lorenzo’s retirement compensation, according to the News, is former Southfield Public Schools Superintendent Cecil Rice who receives $134,313 per year.
Lorenzo said his MCC pension is based on his three highest-paid years, his final years, when he earned $176,000 in salary. When his contributions to a tax-sheltered annuity were added in, his final average compensation rose to $231,000.
In addition, he exercised an option to “purchase” five years of service time, which meant that 47 years of service was applied to the pension formula. One other factor was that he declined a “survivor benefit option,” which means his pension ends when he dies and cannot be transferred to his wife. That move substantially boosted his yearly retirement pay.
As MCC president, Lorenzo was CEO of a school that competed yearly with Oakland Community College for the title of largest Michigan community college. But Lorenzo said he was never the highest paid community college president in the state and often ranked third or fourth.
Like many public sector retirees, after calling it quits Lorenzo went on to land another government job – or, in Lorenzo’s case, two jobs.
The day after he retired from MCC on Sept. 30, 2008, he took a job as the Oakland University Executive in Residence. In December 2010, County Executive Mark Hackel appointed Lorenzo as one of his three assistant executives.
Initially, Lorenzo worked on a 50-50 part-time basis, spending half his time at OU and half his time at the county executive’s office. That arrangement eventually evolved into a 75-25 split, with Lorenzo spending three-fourths of his time working for Hackel.
He is paid $40,000 a year, with no benefits, by OU and $88,000 a year by Macomb County.
That puts his total annual pay at $128,000 and his annual compensation at $298,000.
