Taxes for Us; Pay for Them

At the September 8 Village Board meeting, residents heard a familiar defense of closed/executive sessions. These closed/executive sessions are supposedly vital for protecting legal strategies, personnel issues, and possibly sensitive negotiations.

Yet, the actions taken that very same day reveal a troubling disconnect: the Trustees voted a massive pay bump for themselves and the Mayor in Ordinance #3945 in the pre-meeting that they then placed on the Consent Agenda. They did so without giving anyone notice. Not even in the pre-meeting Agenda (which omitted Exhibit #1, containing the juicy details).

OMA Doesn’t Permit This

Public service relies on a simple pact: government business must be conducted in front of the people. In Illinois, the Open Meetings Act (OMA) demands as much. As discussed before, OMA permits narrow exceptions for closed sessions. One such OMA exception is potentially discussing the compensation of “specific employees.”

However, elected officials are not “specific employees” under OMA, so conversations on compensation for elected officials must occur on the record. The Illinois Attorney General made this unequivocally clear in Binding Opinion 18-015, reflecting the long-held determination that elected officials are “occupant[s] of a public office” and not “specific employees” under OMA (see also Ill. Att’y Gen. OMA Req’t for Review 2022 PAC 72604, citing Ill. Att’y Gen. Pub. Acc. Op. No. 17-023: “[b]ecause elected members of a Village Board are occupants of a public office, not ‘employees’ of public bodies, section 2(c)(1) [of OMA] would not have provided a basis for the Board to close a meeting…”).

Discussions about Trustee compensation, like what the Village Board appears to have held during the pre-meeting to the September 8 board meeting, do not fall within the ambit of any OMA exceptions.

The Board chatting behind closed doors to hammer out massive pay raises for themselves is not an exception to OMA; it is an abuse of it.

Transparent like Mud

As I stated both on the record during the Meeting and subsequently, its clear that substantive policy gets hammered out in those pre-meeting closed sessions, and then enacted through rapid consent agenda votes. This isn’t right.

But what I didn’t catch at the September 8 meeting, was that a pay raise was included in the rubber stamped consent agenda that we all witnessed. I didn’t catch it because Exhibit #1 showing the details of the pay raise wasn’t in the pre-meeting published agenda.

A consent agenda is not the appropriate method for the Board to pass significant pay bumps for themselves with neither notification, justification, nor comment. This is especially true after the Village raised taxes last year.

Making Sausage Isn’t Pretty

This previously undisclosed ordinance (Ordinance #3945) quietly hands the Mayor a ~20% pay raise. Meanwhile, the Trustees voted a ~33% raise for themselves! And its all effective May 2027, right after the election!

In sum, the Trustees unanimously approved raises in the amount of approximately $20,000 in total per year (with additional escalators!) for themselves and the Mayor.

By comparison, the Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for our senior residents was set at a mere 2.8%.

The figures from the published Ordinance 3945 are replicated below.

Mayor’s Pay Bump

Trustee’s Pay Bump

When compensation discussions like this occur in closed session, accountability disappears. This is especially true when the Agenda fails to even publish the details before hand. While raises for the Trustees and Mayor may even be warranted, such adjustments must be presented plainly and debated publicly. It’s what we deserve. They’re spending our money.

Additionally, as shown above, and possibly more problematic, is that Ordinance #3945 includes provisions contemplating remuneration for 9th and 10th terms for the Trustees and Mayor. No one should serve nearly 40 consecutive years in either (or any) capacity, Trustee or Mayor. This is not how a dynamic government stays responsive to its residents.

Structural changes of this magnitude warrant sufficient notice to the community, opportunities to debate, and direct public input—not quiet tweaks hidden in off-the-record conversations, omitted from any agenda, and then ratified by a quick consent vote.

We Can Exceed Exceptional

When I’m a Trustee, my very first order of business will be to move to repeal this Ordinance immediately. I offer the Trustees the opportunity to do so now, though I doubt they’ll bother to even respond.

When I’m a Trustee, I will call upon my fellow Trustees to each publicly explain why they passed this in the manner they did.I will request them to each publicly explain why felt they were entitled to this raise after raising our taxes.

Additionally, regardless of the outcome of my request, when I’m a Trustee, I will donate every dollar I receive above the previously established amount for a first-year Trustee ($6,000). This will be $2,000.

Perhaps Mr. Ricketts has some suggestions on charities I could donate to? I’ll ask him when I see him next week.)

Or, maybe I’ll use it to fund a smaller Operation: Silver Shovels pilot if the Board refuses to do so?

In any case, to Exceed Exceptional we must demand transparency. Passing pay raises in secret after increasing our residents’ taxes less than a year ago is not an example of Exceptional leadership. Setting the ground work for decades of being in power (and incentivizing it with ever increasing pay) is not an example of Exceptional governance.

It is time we elect Trustees committed to doing the people's work in the sunshine. This is what it means to Exceed Exceptional.