Buffalo Grove rewards village manager with pay hike, bonus
Buffalo Grove village trustees gave a monetary vote of confidence to Village Manager Dane Bragg this week.
Trustees approved a 4 percent pay hike for Bragg, the village manager since 2010, bringing his annual salary to $189,000. The village board also awarded him a $17,000 bonus.
Former Village President Jeffrey Braiman, whose last village board meeting was Monday, said elected officials looked at pay in comparable communities to help determine Bragg's salary.
“We have an $80 million budget, with over a billion dollars worth of assets, and he is the CEO of the company,” Braiman said. “If this was a private company, he would be making a lot more than what we're paying. His responsibilities are enormous. He should be compensated. And he does a great job.”
The pay raise comes about a month after Bragg was named the Outstanding Manager of the Year by the Illinois Association of Municipal Management Assistants.
“I think it's definitely reasonable and certainly meets my expectations,” he said of the pay hike.
Bragg said among the things the village board and administrators will be working on in the year ahead will be a strategic plan, a process already in motion under the new community development director, Christopher Stilling.
“I think we're definitely on the right track,” Bragg said. “We have kept the financials really solid. We have been able to get our reserve contributions back online, which was a huge challenge for us, and really to get costs under control.”