WurfWhile

Press Release

For Immediate Release

Contact: Hiram Wurf

Home Office: 630.416.2198

Email hwurf@yahoo.com

County Board Candidate Challenges Board Pay Raises

Schroeder, County Board Pay Principle: Me First

Hiram Wurf, Democratic Candidate for DuPage County Board District 5, today criticized the DuPage County Board for proposing an average of a 3% raise each year, or almost 28% in the next eight years.

“How much will your salary be in 2012?” asked Wurf. “Will you get a raise every year? Most of us have no idea, but Naperville’s Robert Schroeder and members of the DuPage County Board want to change that - for themselves.”

This isn’t the first time DuPage County Board members have fooled around with their pay. The Myrene Iozzo scandal in 2001 is likely to cost DuPage taxpayers as much as $600,000 in extra retirement benefits. Iozzo was appointed by the County Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom in May 1999, and served for 19 months as a County Board member.

She now receives early retirement to the tune of over $50,000 a year for her County Board job, which paid $33,058 a year, and her prior job as supervisor of Addison Township, where she made $35,700.

“Far from this incident making DuPage County Board members more cautious about appearances, the latest salary outrage shows that if we don’t start getting new members on the Board, this won’t be the last scandal where taxpayers foot the bill,” said Wurf. “If the proposal for a ten-year salary increase plan were for county employees, people would be rightly upset. They would say that it wasn’t fiscal planning, but fiscal insanity.”

Not so for many Board members. Schroeder says the program addresses his “concern…that we discuss salaries all the time,” and that if the program is implemented “we won’t have to confront it until 2012.” He then proposes that Board member salary raises get fixed every decade with the census.

“I’m hopeful that the DuPage County Board really doesn’t spend all of its time discussing its own salaries,” Wurf continued. “I would hope a regular, critical review of salaries would not be too burdensome, but considered good government. If elected, I promise to scrutinize my own salary and those of my fellow Board members with greater care and consideration for taxpayers than I do any other Budget item, because I will recognize that public appearance, not to mention tax dollars, matter to DuPage County voters.”

While Schroeder goes on to note that county workers have never received raises of less than 3%, an arguable point, he fails to mention the job and service cuts the county has suffered in recent years while, Board salaries continued to climb.

County Board members should listen to one of their own, James Zay of Carol Stream, who argues that automatically raising pay for a decade is not “prudent.” Zay points out the obvious, “[w]e might be in a position where we can’t give raises” in future years. He also points out that “to automatically assume that you get a raise every year, it doesn’t happen in business a lot.” No, it doesn’t.

“Unfortunately in the pay raise debate, Zay’s voice of reason is rare on the Board,” Wurf concluded. “Most members, including James Healy and Robert Heap of Naperville, join Robert Schroeder in agreeing with the shameful automatic raise for a decade. Only members who feel they have life tenure in their elected posts on the Board could act so callously and cavalierly with the public’s money. County Board members have gotten too comfortable at the County’s expense.”

Hiram Wurf is the Democratic candidate for the DuPage County Board District 5. He and his wife have lived in the District for nine years and have two children. Hiram operates the Midwest Regional Office of a promotional marketing solutions firm.

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