I’ve been a bit under the weather the last day with a head cold, so I’ve been delayed in posting this article about DuPage County Board pay proposals. This ran in yesterday’s Naperville Sun.
County Board member under fire for pay-raise plan
By Katie Foutz
staff writer
While DuPage County Board members await legal advice on their proposed pay raises, opponents are asking whether the raises are ethical.
The County Board expects an opinion this week from the state’s attorney’s office on whether the board can set pay-raise schedules after every census, as local County Board member Robert Schroeder proposed.
“If they don’t come back with a satisfactory answer, I plan to ask for a one- to three-page clear interpretation of state statutes, explaining why we can’t do it,” said Schroeder, R-Naperville.
County Board members make $44,100 a year, and board members starting new terms in December are set to make $46,305. Under a salary schedule the finance committee recommended last week, those officials would make $50,079 by 2007 and $56,364 by 2011.
Opponents on the board said a 10-year forecast would bind future boards and might aim too low or too high for the economy at the time.
Schroeder said it doesn’t matter to him whether he gets a pay raise or not. However, he said, because “politics is the art of the possible,” he proposed a pay schedule he thought his colleagues would support.
“I would be glad to accept a 0-percent raise,” he said. “But that’s not going to fly. I tried that and I got four votes.”
His opponent on the November ballot, Democrat Hiram Wurf of Naperville, feels the board’s proposal doesn’t match the economy. While the County Board is proposing pay raises, county programs for low-income residents, such as Neighborhood Resource Centers, are facing less funding. Meanwhile, workers in private business are seeing job cuts.
Wurf said board members already make a “substantial income” from what’s billed as a part-time job.
“There are many people who make less than that full time,” he said.
If he’s elected to the County Board, Wurf said he would consider a pay cut or at least a pay freeze. By guaranteeing themselves raises, he said, officials are sending the wrong message to taxpayers.
“For them to continue increasing their pay and furthermore to propose a decade of raises is fiscally irresponsible,” Wurf said. “We don’t know what will happen in even five years. It doesn’t set the tone that we care about where your hard-earned money goes.”
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