Naperville Township cuts budget by $50,000 to pay road chief's salary
While Naperville Township's road district budget awaits the resolution of a potential service agreement with the city of Naperville, the township approved its general spending plan Wednesday night.
The $2,225,952 budget came with $50,000 of recent cuts to cover the entire salary and benefits of Highway Commissioner Stan Wojtasiak instead of half of it, Township Supervisor Rachel Ossyra said.
For years, Wojtasiak, who's been in office since 2002, paid for half his salary and benefits out of the road budget as opposed to all of it getting paid out of the general township budget.
Last month, he told Ossyra he would no longer honor that pledge in the wake of her push for Wojtasiak to approve a contract by which the city would take over maintenance of the township's 16 centerline miles of roads.
"She's trying to put me out of business, so why on earth should I contribute to her budget?" he said last week.
Ossyra said the township's general budget had to absorb an additional $57,000 to cover all of Wojtasiak's $81,300 salary and benefits that total about $114,000.
She said the township's budget usually includes a margin beyond what is spent, but she cut $7,000 from the margin for 2016-17 fiscal year. She then cut $50,000 from the budget to ensure Wojtasiak's compensation gets paid.
Of those cuts, $20,000 came from decreasing grants given to social service partner agencies such as 360 Youth Services, Loaves & Fishes Community Services, Community Career Center and Samaritan Interfaith Counseling, Ossyra said.
Another $15,000 came from delaying capital improvements to the township building at 139 Water St., which is bordered on two sides by major construction of a hotel, restaurants and shops at the Water Street hospitality district. The work now will be phased in instead of conducted all at once.
Other cuts include spending $7,000 less on information technology; $4,000 less on training and printing and $3,000 less on telecommunications, travel and postage, among small decreases in other categories.