Hanover Park clerk to pay back inflated salary
Documents have come to light showing Hanover Park Village Clerk Sherry Craig has been overpaid for the past several years.
Craig isn't certified with the institution required by village code to be paid $5,000 annually, which she's been getting since 2000. Without the certification, Craig is entitled to earn $3,500 yearly.
Once Trustee Bill Manton made the discrepancy public, the village staff verified the information and officials met behind closed doors in executive session, where Craig agreed to reimburse the village.
Craig couldn't be reached for comment. But Mayor Rod Craig said his wife had not known she'd been overpaid.
"She's not there to take an additional dollar from the municipality," he said. "She agreed to pay it back if she was paid erroneously."
The exact figure is still unknown because deductions will have to be accounted for, but the extra $1,500 paid to Sherry Craig over a period of about seven years totals $10,500.
Manton says somebody -- he won't say who -- tipped him off to the inaccuracy.
He learned through a Freedom of Information request that Sherry Craig has never applied or been awarded certification from the International Institute of Municipal Clerks.
The village had made that certification a condition for the extra compensation several years before Craig was elected clerk in 1985.
Craig, who is certified with the Municipal Clerks of Illinois, correctly earned about $3,000 until 1999. At that time, elected officials were given raises. But for unknown reasons, her salary was raised by $1,500 instead of the $500 to which she was entitled without the international certification.
When Manton brought up the issue at a village board meeting last month, Sherry Craig said then she had no idea she was making too much. Manton questions the assertion because her signature is on the 1999 ordinance.
"She had to have noticed her paycheck going up all of a sudden," Manton says.
Craig said at the meeting that in her defense, her paycheck lumped together her salaries as clerk and village collector, a position she held until recently.
She added that she has never misrepresented herself and always pays her own way whenever attending events related to village business.
"If I have been overpaid, I apologize," she said.
Though a Sherry Craig signature stamp goes on all paychecks, Rod Craig said someone should have noticed.
"I would think with a payroll department, finance department, human resources department and eight years of audits, someone would have caught this," he said.
It's been a rough year for Sherry Craig, who recently lost her job as village collector -- and its $55,000 salary -- when the board eliminated the position midterm.
Rod Craig maintains the move screamed of political vindictiveness and says the timing of the board's discussion over the clerk's salary is suspect.
"Somebody kept this in their pocket, and now it's a good time to bring it up because she's vulnerable," he said.
While the tipster might have an agenda, Manton says the finances are cut and dried. He says he tried to keep the matter low-key, validating the information privately and alerting the board during an annual discussion about payroll.
"I could care less about politics. The facts speak for themselves," Manton said. "The criteria wasn't being met but the salary was being paid."