End stipends for state boards

In the last several months, I have seen comments from the Herald about this or that board whose members receive a stipend. The latest is the Illinois tollway board, whose members receive a stipend of $31,426. Your editorial board has also recommend that tollway employees give up free access to the tollways as a job perk. That may be a good idea. But how about those political insiders giving up their “stipend.”

They meet 12 times a year, and assuming they work an eight-hour day, probably with a free lunch and assuming they work through lunch that works out to be $327.35 dollars an hour. Not bad for a stipend. And, I bet that somehow or another, it bumps up their state pension.

If it is such an honor, they should serve as a dollar-a-year person for the public good.

Jim Sather

Geneva