MSP changes district commander

Michigan State Police will soon have a new post commander for the Marshall Post, which covers Branch, Calhoun, and St. Joseph counties. 

Lt. Toby Baker told the Branch County 911 board “ Lieutenant (Jim) Coleman is currently on vacation. Maybe some of you may know he's planning on transferring to Hart” to the District 6-2 post. 

Coleman will replace Lt. Jeff White who retired Tuesday after 31 years with MSP. 

Baker has been at the District 1-3 post covering Jackson and Hillsdale counties. He now is the assistant commander in Marshall.  

Lt. Coleman, who headed the district 5-4 Post headquartered in Coldwater until September 2015 when it moved to Marshall, has been the local post commander since 2011.

Coleman is part of the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP, which was authorized by a unanimous vote of both the House and Senate in 2004.

The Michigan State Police incentive program gives employees with 25 years of experience some $400,000 or more if they agree to stay with the department up to six years after becoming eligible for retirement benefits.

According to an analysis done in 2016 by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, there were 17 Michigan State Police employees who made $109,000 or more per year who qualified for the DROP program.

The program was created during the budget crunches in the early 2000s. New trooper schools were authorized just twice during the nine-year period from 2002 to 2010 as the number of troopers fell. 

Drop added six years to the normal 25-year time troopers needed to retire. The incentive is equal to 100 percent of what that employee's pension would be if they served those six years as an additional salary. 

Trace Christenson, USA Today network, contributed to this story