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[This entry has been updated to include all of the Democratic County Board candidates and to make reference to a Bob Peickert campaign press release from 2006.]

It is the province of the powerful, and sometimes inept or lazy, to complain that challengers to their power have “no ideas” and fail to offer solutions. So it was with great interest I read yesterday’s Daily Herald story “County looks at cost-cutting ideas.” What innovative ideas, I thought, would the all-Republican DuPage County Board bring to the current fiscal crisis of their making that has resulted in record property tax increases (with proposals for more and new taxes including more sales tax, a vehicle tax and a cigarette tax); staffing cuts that threaten current county services (in the Naperville Sun 6/15/07); and program cuts that have impacted our residents’ health, property and quality of life. A fiscal crisis that has surprised the all-Republican DuPage County Board despite its utterly predictable and slow train wreck quality (or whatever description you would apply to something with an end date and five years of warning). A crisis that DuPage Water Commissioner Elizabeth “Liz” Chaplin, a Democrat running for a county board seat last election, observed no one on the 18-member board could find a solution to - a fact that simply “amazed” her. Imagine my surprise then to read that ideas mentioned in the article were ideas Democratic county board challengers voiced during the last two or more elections. Ideas rejected in the 2006 elections by DuPage County Board members like Grant Eckhoff (R-Wheaton), who said that Democratic challengers “don’t have any new ideas that I’ve seen where they’re going to close this budget” [Chicago Tribune 10/4/06]. Perhaps Mr. Eckhoff, who was busy running for office, wasn’t aware of what was going on in DuPage County last election. Here’s some help.

Here are the ideas, some of the Democratic candidates that championed them and some commentary:

Today’s GOP “Innovative” Idea:
Cut county board member and Chairman Schillerstrom’s salaries substantially.

Yesterday’s Democratic Proposal:
Cut county board member and Chairman Schillerstrom’s salaries substantially.

Democrats Who Proposed The Idea: I’m sure there were many before I ran in 2004, but I can easily say that all the Democratic DuPage County Board candidates in 2004 were against the 5% salary increase vote by 11 of 18 county board members on May 18, 2004 and some Democrats proposed significant cuts. In the most recent election Richard Dunn proposed cutting County Board member pay by more than 40% and also reducing retirement expenses - his position (with some variation on the percentage of the cut) was generally agreed to by all of the Democratic candidates, including Dan Bailey, Elizabeth “Liz” Chaplin, Fred Chavez, Rita Gonzalez, Robert “Bob” Peickert, and Lynne Presley. From the Chicago Tribune (10/4/06): In a press conference Democratic County Board Candidates argued “[t]hat one-party domination…has resulted in board members giving themselves raises while the county faces a predicted $45 million deficit over the next two fiscal years…. They called board member salaries - which will reach $53,645 by 2010 - ‘outrageous’ for a part-time job.”

Nutshell Summary: Democrats have complained for years that the all-Republican DuPage County Board should cut its salaries and the all-Republican DuPage County Board has for years increased its salaries. Now the Republicans think the Democrats ideas might be a solution to the DuPage fiscal crisis the Republicans created.

Today’s GOP “Innovative” Idea:
Reduce the number of county board members from 18 to 12.

Yesterday’s Democratic Proposal:
Reduce the number of county board members from 18 to 12.

Democrats Who Proposed The Idea: Bob Peickert (Daily Herald “Democrats Blame GOP for Budget” 10/4/06) and all of the Democratic County Board candidates. From the Chicago Tribune (10/4/06): In a press conference DuPage Democratic County Board Candidates “said 18 is too many board members, pointing to Cook County, which has more than five times the population and one fewer board member.”

Nutshell Summary: Can you even name your three county board members - and do you know how they vote? The system of electing three members per district simply makes it harder to track who is doing what, and easier for everyone to avoid accountability (and blame) by ‘rotating’ controversial votes and avoiding them just before an election. Shouldn’t we know who is responsible when things go well - or when we have a fiscal crisis five years in the making like we do today?

These, and other proposals by the Democrats, deserve more notice - and particularly in stories like yesterday’s Daily Herald, where readers would benefit from knowing that Democratic candidates have already offered possible solutions on the issues that matter, while Republican incumbents are hoping for inspiration by watching re-runs.

A final note, part of what excites me about the development of Democrats in DuPage is that we have a lot of innovative ideas - and we offer a number of solutions to the challenges DuPage faces. Sometimes we even disagree. I happen to think instead of lowering the salary of county board members, we should ask more of them by making the position a full-time job - and get people in there who will do the job right. DuPage has an annual budget close to half a billion that affects about a million residents - with that much at stake shouldn’t we have people whose sole job is to make sure things run well and problems are proactively addressed to avoid a crisis? Shouldn’t we have a full-time commitment? Let’s take a couple examples from board members to see the problem.

- At the time of the May 2004 salary raise, County Board member James “Jim” Healy who voted for the raise said, “You have to pay people a decent amount to get them to do the work…. Every minute I’m here, it’s $3 that my firm has lost. … My partners see it as less money to feed their kids” [Naperville Sun 5/26/04].

Jim’s analysis points to a basic truth - I don’t want my county board members calculating how much money they or their business have lost when they should be focusing on DuPage County business. I think DuPage deserves a full-time commitment from its county board members, and fair compensation to match it.

- At the time of the May 2006 salary raise, then-Finance Committee Chair and County Board member Robert Heap “admitted some board members don’t pull their weight” [Daily Herald 5/24/06].

Bob’s analysis points to another basic truth - you tend to get what you ask for and what you pay for. I believe we should ask for a real full-time commitment and provide a fair salary because the job is (or at least should be) considered serious. The DuPage County Board controls more money than many businesses and affects a lot of people’s lives - we shouldn’t tolerate members who “don’t pull their weight.” DuPage is better than that - and we should demand a lot more.