Double-digit raises? Not now.

It's funny how quickly things change.

In a matter of days, many of us have gone from a mindset of simple belt-tightening to life-changing shifts in when we plan to retire, how our children will pay for college, where we'll live.

We're rapidly adapting to a stark new reality - and we expect our public employees to do so, too.

So we're particularly dismayed by separate proposals to raise salaries 17.4 percent over three years for teachers in Kaneland Unit District 302 schools and to give double-digit raises to DuPage County sheriff's deputies and assistant prosecutors.

Kaneland teachers threaten to strike as early as Thursday, Oct. 16, over their union's inability to negotiate a three-year contract with raises of 5.8 percent the first year, 6.5 percent the second year and 5.1 percent the third year. The average teacher salary, according to the school district's Web site, is $52,884.

In DuPage County, Sheriff John Zaruba proposed raising deputies' salaries as much as 16 percent and State's Attorney Joe Birkett urged 11 percent raises for nearly 100 assistant state's attorneys whose starting pay is $48,784.

Employees in each case were said to be lower paid than their peers in neighboring suburbs.

Dare we grumble, "They should be glad to have jobs?"

Across America, 478,000 people were new on the unemployment lines last week. An estimated 1 in every 416 U.S. homes is in foreclosure. The Dow on Thursday hit its lowest point in five years.

Given that, any talk of large raises for public employees is exceptionally ill-timed.

We realize that Kaneland's contract talks and DuPage's budget process have been going on for some weeks, and it's the employees' bad fortune that decision time finds us at the brink of global recession.

Yet, that's where we are.

We call on DuPage County officials and on Kaneland District 302 teachers and the school board to step up to this historic challenge with swift agreements for nominal, if any, salary increases for one year. Top administrators should make the same sacrifice.

Fears that valued employees will flee - the reasons given in both Kaneland and DuPage County in arguing for the raises - are likely to be moot as many workers opt for job security over salaries growth.

In hopes of brighter days within reach, both Kaneland and DuPage County should plan to revisit this issue in 2009.

Now is not the time for anyone to negotiate a three-year contract - not when the economic picture is changing so quickly.