Naperville council keeps stipends for cellphones, Internet
Naperville City Council members pride themselves on being some of the most accessible civil servants around. And they say they’ll continue to be just that as long as you keep paying their Internet and cellphone bills.
Councilmen this week agreed overwhelmingly that the $5,400 line item for “Internet service” and the $4,800 line item for “cellphones for councilmen” be left in the budget as they have since fiscal 2000 and fiscal 2006 respectively. Add that up and it’s $1,275 a year per councilman for Internet and cellphone service.
“The rationale for the reimbursement is fairly simple in that councilmen are using cellphones and Internet connections for city business, and the costs are being paid for by the councilmen themselves,” said Finance Director Karen DeAngelis. “The mayor does have a city issued cellphone, so he is not receiving a cellphone stipend.”
Councilman Paul Hinterlong, who historically has declined the stipends, called for both line items to be removed from the city’s proposed budget Monday. But he was the only one.
“I don’t want to say we get paid well (between $12,000 and $15,000 a year, not including benefits, for the part-time post) but I think it’s something we can take care of ourselves,” Hinterlong said, asking for the Internet line item to be removed from the fiscal 2013 budget. “We all have the technology and we’d all have it even if we weren’t councilmen, so that’s why I think it can be eliminated.”
Councilmen Kenn Miller and Steve Chirico hinted they would each be willing to reduce the stipend but neither made a motion or stated a number.
“I’m fine with reducing it but I just want to mention that by taking advantage of this technology we save a tremendous amount of printing costs and other types of things as well, so it works both ways,” Chirico said.
Councilman Grant Wehrli, however, argued eliminating the stipends would instantly make council members less accessible. He said the stipends are necessary to cover data plan subscriptions for those who use iPads or other tablets rather than laptop and desktop computers.
“I’m not opposed to doing a certain cost but to me this is the cost of doing business as a council. You can call us on the phone or you can email me and I owe it to my constituents to be able to get back to them. So I would leave that where it is,” he said. “If you want to take the Internet away from my house, I would still pay for it. If you take away from my iPad, you’re going to get pretty sporadic responses.”
As for cellphones, Hinterlong again suggested each of the members would have them whether or not they were on the council. And the dais fell silent.
The council’s next meeting to review the budget is set for Dec. 12. Final approval is set for March.