By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--January 5, 2009
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The difference between the UAW’s LM-2 and the Tax Tribunal filings amount to more than $21 million dollars, which would translate to around $770,000 in property taxes the UAW isn’t paying to Waverly Township each year, if you accept their LM-2 appraisal (the township’s treasurer advised me that the rate is around 3.6%).That’s quite a difference. It should be remembered that these taxes are used for local schools and the like, so the UAW doesn’t appear to be a very good neighbor in Cheboygan County, does it? But, according to Chet Zarko of Zarko Research and Consulting there is even more hanky panky at the resort than a mere evasion of local property taxes. It seems that there is a very large discrepancy in the reported costs of employee wages and the pension funding at the education center connected with the golf resort project.
It’s that the pension fund expenses appear to be really out-of-line with overall wages. So far out of line that you have to wonder exactly who is doing the work to get pension fund contributions. There’s a key piece of context here - the $5.91 million in pension fund contributions compares $3.25 million in wages. Normally, you’d expect the wages to be much higher than the pension contribution - 10 times or perhaps as little as 5-6 times. But not the other direction. And of the 3.25 million, 2.6 million is “general labor” - there is no way the room custodians and general labor are getting that gold-plated of a pension deal. The other half million is “administrative” wages - but even the hotel administrators are unlikely to be able to get away with such a self-dealing (unless they are something more than that to the union leadership).So how does the UAW justify this “out-of-line” accounting with the educational center pension funds? Where and to whom is all this benefit money going, anyway? It appears that there is a lot of shaky record keeping and shadowy operations connected with this Black Hills luxury golf club owned by the UAW. And, again, all the money tied up in this property is the money taken from the pockets of the hard working rank-and-file members of the American auto industry, the same industry in such dire straights this year. As autoworkers across the country face an uncertain future, as pension funds every day appear on shaky grounds, someone needs to force the United Auto Workers union to account for these millions of dollars in accounting discrepancies. The biggest question is this: will the Obama administration so beholden to the millions of dollars donated to his campaign by unions be able to hold unions accountable for their criminal actions and fraudulent accounting practices?
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.