Lake County pay-freeze plan progresses
Proposals to freeze the salaries of eight Lake County Board members and four countywide officials cleared an important hurdle Friday.
None of the 16 county commissioners who attended the morning's committee-of-the-whole meeting in Libertyville objected to either planned freeze.
"I'm going to be the lowest-paid county board member - and I don't care," said Gurnee Republican Steve Carlson, one of the eight affected commissioners. "None of us do it for the money."
The measures now move to the full county board for a vote Tuesday in Waukegan.
One proposal would freeze the eight salaries at $40,945 for 2011 and 2012.
Only eight commissioners' salaries are being targeted because the board sets salaries in chunks, based on which members are up for election. The freezes would apply to whomever is elected, incumbent or newcomer, in November.
The eight incumbents representing the selected districts are: Carlson; Craig Taylor of Lake Zurich; Aaron Lawlor of Libertyville; Brent Paxton of Zion; Susan Loving Gravenhorst of Lake Bluff; Carol Calabresa of Libertyville; Ann Maine of Lincolnshire; and Anne Flanigan Bassi of Highland Park.
The 15 board members who aren't up for election this year would be unaffected by the pay freeze if it is approved. They would receive scheduled 3.75 percent pay raises in each of the next two years, which would bring their salaries to $44,074 by 2012.
Salaries for all the board members could be reset in 2012 because the entire panel will be up for election, following the regular once-a-decade redistricting.
The county board last instituted a temporary pay freeze in the 1990s.
The second pay-related proposal would freeze the salaries of the county treasurer, sheriff, regional schools superintendent and clerk for two years. Those four officials also are up for election this year.
It also calls for 2 percent increases in 2013 and 2014 for those for posts.
Once the salaries are set, they can't be adjusted midterm, said Paxton, a Zion Republican who leads the board's finance committee.
"Is 2 percent going to be a lot in two years? We have no way of knowing," said Paxton, who proposed the pay freezes late last month.