Sic watchdog on big taxing districts

In the Herald’s June 1 article, “Fewer miles, more pay,” Jake Griffin’s picking on the salaries of township road commissioners without knowledge of relevant factors does us all a disservice. His metric — salary vs township road miles — is simplistic.

He does quote Maine Township Commissioner Provenzano in pointing out that miles through heavily populated areas require a lot more maintenance than those through cornfields, but then that’s dropped and it’s back to salary vs road miles.

The article’s particular target was Winfield Township where I live, which is one of those with a large population density with heavy truck and car traffic. Additionally, the residential nature of the township implies more trees than in farm country. That means more maintenance along roadways, more cleanup from storm damage, and increased impact of DuPage County’s “No Burning” law on property owners. To help with this, our road commission undertakes programs not offered in many other townships: leaf and brush pickup, and the delivery of the resulting wood chips to property owners for suppressing weeds on paths and plantings — an excellent recycling arrangement.

So far, despite the defeat of five successive referendums asking for money to pay for the escalating cost of asphalt, salt and other road-maintenance supplies, skillful management of resources and personnel in Winfield Township has allowed these additional services to continue.

People in any township want a good “bang for the buck”, i.e. services versus net tax dollars. When long work hours and management skills of our road commissioners is successful in stretching scarce tax dollars, we save much more than the salaries that they earn.

Township road districts get less than 2 percent of our tax bill. Watchdog activity might find better yield in the big taxing districts.

Gib Van Dine

West Chicago