Wayne County approved a $9,000-a-month consulting deal for Abdul El-Sayed days after he launched a Senate bid, routing taxpayer money through his LLC while he left a troubled health department record behind.
Public records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show the Wayne County Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services signed off on the arrangement on April 23, 2025.
The contract landed six days after El-Sayed announced his run for the U.S. Senate from Michigan. He had resigned as the department’s director only weeks earlier, on April 3, 2025.
Taxpayers were on the hook for up to $72,000 over eight months. The rate worked out to about $300 an hour for a stated 30 hours a month.
County officials described the work as “consulting services.” The written purpose was to “provide strategic support to the County in efforts to ensure smooth and effective leadership transition and aligning operational priorities with the County’s broader vision for public health and human services.”
Payments did not go to El-Sayed as a simple W-2 hire. They were routed through AME Higher LLC, an entity the Free Beacon reported he created as a pass-through for consulting and speaking fees.
Wayne County is run by Democratic County Executive Warren Evans. El-Sayed had led the health, human, and veterans services department for two years beginning in March 2023 before stepping down and almost immediately sliding into the paid consultant role.
His latest financial disclosure, covering all of 2025 and the first seven months of 2026, listed a $64,000 “salary” from AME Higher and another $103,000 taken as a “member draw.”
Accountants told the Free Beacon that member draws from S corporations are a common way to limit payroll taxes, because those draws are not taxed like regular wages.
The same disclosure period sits alongside other consulting income. El-Sayed collected more than $82,000 from One Health Partners, a Chicago-area nonprofit health care company run by Ali Karim, described as one of his largest campaign donors.
The Free Beacon has reported that One Health Partners focuses on buying medical practices and “exploiting Medicare” to lift revenue. Former employees called the operation a “scam.” Wisconsin regulators sanctioned Karim for defrauding an investor, and he has faced multiple lawsuits alleging fraudulent business practices.
That donor-tied income stream adds to a campaign picture already marked by sharp questions about El-Sayed’s medical debt claims and how he sells his record to voters.
On the trail, El-Sayed has said he “led the rebuild from the studs” of the county’s troubled juvenile lockup.
State investigators who reviewed the facility during his time overseeing it described conditions “flooded with sewage and garbage” and “dried feces and bodily fluids.”
Records also detail a 12-year-old detainee beaten and sexually assaulted by fellow inmates left unsupervised by staff. State regulators revoked the facility’s full operational license and placed it on probation over widespread health and safety failures.
The gap between the rebuild boast and the inspection file is not a minor paperwork dispute. It is the difference between a candidate’s slogan and what regulators put in writing while he held authority.
Voters weighing that record may also notice how often El-Sayed’s political orbit collides with controversy, including a Dearborn fundraiser lineup that drew scrutiny for the activists sharing the stage.
Asked about the consulting arrangement, El-Sayed spokeswoman Roxie Richner did not walk through deliverables, timesheets, or why a just-resigned director needed a $9,000 monthly retainer from the same taxpayers.
She went after Republican Mike Rogers instead.
"While Abdul was improving services and making government more efficient for Michigan taxpayers, Mike Rogers was spinning through the revolving door, cashing checks from the same industries he used to regulate in Congress. Mike Rogers repeatedly voted to increase his own salary in Congress before retiring to his Florida mansion as a multimillionaire,"
That answer dodges the core sequence. Resign. Announce. Sign a county consulting deal. Bill the public up to $72,000 while running statewide.
It also leaves untouched the LLC structure, the member draw, and the separate six-figure consulting haul from a donor’s nonprofit.
Family politics have not always matched the branding either. Coverage of how his sister undercut his “capitalist” claim at a Chicago socialist conference showed the same pattern: polished messaging up front, awkward facts underneath.
March 2023: El-Sayed takes the Wayne County health department post.
April 3, 2025: He resigns.
Mid-April 2025: He announces a Senate campaign.
April 23, 2025: The same county department approves his consulting contract through the end of the calendar year.
No competitive-bid file, no public timesheet dump, and no county justification beyond the transition language appear in the reporting. The open questions are basic ones any payroll clerk would ask. What product did the county receive? Who signed? How much actually cleared?
Campaign ads have invited similar double-checks. Separate reporting on “Jews for Abdul” messaging and on an imam tied to his mosque circle who praised a Hamas leader as a martyr has kept the scrutiny on associations as well as on ledgers.
None of that erases the consulting paper trail. It places the county contract inside a longer habit of asking voters to accept the brochure version of his tenure.
El-Sayed left a department post, kept a financial tie to the same county machine, and packaged the arrangement as strategic help for a “leadership transition.”
The rate was rich. The vehicle was his own LLC. The timing hugged his campaign launch. The juvenile facility file from his watch undercut the rebuild story he still tells.
Michigan voters can decide whether that is public service or a comfortable off-ramp paid by the public.
When politicians bill the county while running for higher office, the invoices matter more than the spin.
