Lake Co. board approves pay freeze for 8 who are up for re-election

With little fanfare or public discussion, the Lake County Board on Tuesday approved pay freezes for eight of its members.

The panel also temporarily froze the salaries of four of the elected officials who hold countywide offices.

All 12 of the affected politicians are up for election in November. The board approves salaries every two years for the offices up for election that year.

The freezes go into effect in December, regardless of who is elected Nov. 2.

County board finance chair Brent Paxton proposed the pay freezes last week. They're necessary, he and other proponents have said, because of the poor economy and the county's ongoing budget struggles.

The measures sailed through committee discussions with much support and no opposition. The freezes for the county board members and the countywide officials were adopted in two votes. No one opposed either measure.

On the county board, the incumbents representing the selected districts are: Paxton of Zion, Steve Carlson of Gurnee, Craig Taylor of Lake Zurich, Aaron Lawlor of Vernon Hills, Susan Loving Gravenhorst of Lake Bluff, Carol Calabresa of Libertyville; Ann Maine of Lincolnshire and Anne Flanigan Bassi of Highland Park.

The salaries for those eight seats will remain $40,945 through 2012.

The 15 board members who aren't up for election this year are unaffected by the pay freeze. They will receive scheduled 3.75 percent raises in each of the next two years, which will 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 incumbents in the affected countywide offices are Treasurer Bob Skidmore, Sheriff Mark Curran, Regional Schools Superintendent Roycealee Wood and Clerk Willard Helander.

Those officials won't get raises in 2011 or 2012 but will receive 2 percent pay increases in 2013 and 2014. By law, salaries for those jobs must be set for their entire four-year term and cannot be adjusted mid-term.

"We tried to be as conservative and fair as we could," Paxton said.

Salaries for the countywide officials already vary because some, such as the regional schools chief and the state's attorney, are at least partially funded by the state.

After the votes, county Commissioner Melinda Bush called for the countywide officials who are scheduled to get raises in 2011 and 2012 - the coroner, circuit court clerk and recorder of deeds - to return those pay increases to the county, as nearly all of the county board members did last year.

Curran and Wood also returned the raises they received late last year, officials have said.