Des Plaines mayor vetoes health insurance perks for elected officials
Matt Bogusz on Tuesday issued his second veto as Des Plaines mayor - this one made in an attempt to end health insurance benefits for the city's elected officials.
But aldermen have the votes to override him, if they want.
Bogusz wrote in a memo to the city's eight aldermen - six of whom voted March 21 to formally put the benefits into city code - that the veto offers them the opportunity to "rethink their decision and do right by their neighbors."
"Elected officials who ask 'what's in it for me' are in the wrong business," he wrote.
He said other part-time city employees don't get city health benefits. And he argued the council's decision weakened its bargaining position with union employee groups when aldermen look to reduce the city's health insurance costs, yet get "Cadillac plan benefits for themselves."
Those in favor of keeping the benefits have argued elected officials often work more than part-time hours and receive salaries as low as $3,000.
For more than three decades, Des Plaines mayors, aldermen and city clerks have been eligible to receive city health and dental coverage - something city General Counsel Peter Friedman called a "policy and practice" of the city, even though city staff couldn't find anything in the code certifying it.
Absent anything in the code, Bogusz unilaterally decided last month to end the perks for all elected officials at the end of their current terms of office.
That led to the council's vote last meeting to put the benefits into the code. The two aldermen who voted "no," Denise Rodd and Don Smith, don't accept the benefits. Neither does Bogusz.
His first veto as mayor came in late 2013 - a decision that kept the city's so-called responsible bidder ordinance that some aldermen sought to change. They argued the union-friendly rule, requiring contractors bidding on public projects over $25,000 to have apprenticeship programs, was costing the city money. The council didn't have the required six votes to override Bogusz's veto.
At the council meeting Monday, the city clerk will formally announce the veto. Aldermen could vote April 18 to overturn the veto.