Should Des Plaines officials get insurance perks? Voters to weigh in
An advisory referendum question this November will ask Des Plaines residents if they think the city's elected officials should get taxpayer-funded health insurance benefits.
The push to get the question on the Nov. 8 ballot through the collection of petition signatures came after aldermen overrode a mayoral veto in April that enabled them to keep their city health and dental coverage.
Alderman Denise Rodd, one of the proponents of abolishing the perk since running for office in 2013, said residents at her 3rd Ward meetings started the grass-roots effort to gather the necessary 1,258 signatures for the referendum.
In the end, a dozen people from the 3rd Ward and other parts of the city knocked on doors and passed petitions at the train station and during the Fourth of July parade, yielding more than 1,500 signatures, Rodd said.
Rodd herself went door-to-door to gather signatures.
"At the council meeting this year when the council voted to codify the benefits, I stated then that I would fight to change the code as long as I was able," Rodd said Tuesday.
Those petitions were submitted Monday to the city clerk's office, which will send the papers to county officials to certify before placing the question on the ballot.
Supporters of keeping the benefits have argued elected officials often work more than part-time hours and receive salaries as low as $3,000. And they've said the city's costs to cover officials - $92,692 last year - is relatively small compared to the overall $150 million city budget.
Those who accept the city health plan must pay 12 percent of premium costs; the city picks up the remainder.
During the city council debate earlier this year, Rodd sought to have the council vote to put the question to voters, but her motion failed to get a second.
Rodd and Don Smith were the only aldermen to vote against an ordinance in March that put the benefits into city code. They, along with Mayor Matt Bogusz, don't personally accept the benefits, but the other six aldermen and city clerk do.
Elected officials in Des Plaines have been eligible to receive city benefits for more than three decades. But in February, Bogusz unilaterally decided to end the perks at the end of officials' current terms of office, after city staffers said they couldn't find anything in the city code about offering the benefits.
After a 6-2 vote of aldermen in favor of the benefits, Bogusz issued a veto, overturned shortly thereafter by the same margin.
While the referendum would not be binding, Rodd is hopeful voters will vote against the benefits and a future city council will follow their recommendation.
"The whole intent of this is just to give people a voice in the matter," she said. "They felt they weren't being heard."