DETROIT – 
On a 5-3 vote, trustees of the Wayne County Retirement System approved a lucrative pension for County Executive Robert Ficano's former chief of staff.
When Matthew Schenk turns 42 years old in a few months he will begin collecting an annual pension of over $96,000.
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He worked for the county for only eight and a half years, but was allowed to purchase several more pension years to become eligible.
Board Chairman Lorenzo Moner voted no.
"It's not right. It doesn't pass the smell test," said Moner. "He'll get it for the rest of his life. Four and a half million a year if he lives to a ripe old age."
Trustee Gary Woronchak called the pension "ridiculous," but he still voted for it.
"If we would have voted it down, we would have just cost the county $250,000 thousand in legal fees for a case that we would have lost," said Woronchak.
Schenk and other Ficano aides were offered sweetened pensions as an early retirement incentive.
Ficano, according to his spokesperson, later rescinded the deals, but the courts upheld the original agreements.
The pension for thousands of former county workers is funded at a level of only 45 percent.
Schenk could not be reached for comment.