Former rec supervisor to get $10,000 from Island Lake
Seven months after being found not guilty of starting a bar fight, Island Lake’s former recreation supervisor will get $10,000 from the village to cover back pay.
Karen Luebbers had been placed on unpaid leave following a December 2010 fight at a local tavern. That suspension continued until she was reinstated in June 2011.
Charged with misdemeanor battery, Luebbers was found not guilty in June 2012.
The village board unanimously approved the payout Thursday night. It settles a grievance filed with the village, Trustee Shannon Fox said.
“It was the right thing to do, considering the situation,” Fox said.
Luebbers could not be reached for comment.
Luebbers no longer oversees the recreation department’s programming. She recently took a job as an accounts payable clerk at village hall, replacing an employee who had left, finance director John Little said.
The village board on Thursday also approved a new labor contract with the union representing the police department’s three sergeants.
In part, the contract calls for a retroactive 1.5-percent salary increase for the current fiscal year and similarly modest raises in each of the next three years.
Base pay will increase 1.75 percent in May 2013, 2 percent in 2014 and another 2 percent in 2015, the deal states.
The base salary for a newly appointed sergeant will increase to $80,576 from $79,190 in May.
The sergeants had been working without a contract since April 2010. This is their first contract with the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, Little said.
Trustees approved the contract unanimously.
The vote came just a week after Island Lake officials voted to lay off the police department’s unionized dispatchers and outsource that service to the Lake Zurich Police Department.