If at least one Kane County Board member has his way, the next County Board chairman will not follow in Warren Kammerer’s footsteps as one of the lowest-paid county executives in the Chicago area. Instead, he or she would be among the highest-paid.
Retiring board member Peter Pund (R-St. Charles) Thursday called for nearly doubling the chairman’s salary in 1997 to $60,000 annually, a sum that would increase to $69,000 by 2000.
“I’m not trying to feather the nest for (Republican nominee) Mike McCoy, but by the same token, if you’re going to attract good people into government, you have to pay them,” Pund said.
McCoy is likely to win election in November.
The full board is to vote on salaries for several county officials at its monthly meeting on Tuesday.
If the board agrees with Pund, the incoming chairman’s salary would not come close to matching Cook County Board President John Stroger’s $115,000 annual stipend, but it would approach Will County Executive Charles Adelman’s current $61,600. Adelman is to get a raise to $74,000 in December.
In DuPage, Gayle Franzen is paid $55,434 a year. Lake County Board Chairman Robert Depke is paid $52,000 a year, and Dianne Klemm in McHenry County is paid about $30,000.
Kammerer (R-St. Charles), who will retire in December after about six years as chairman, makes $32,000 a year in what is considered a part-time position.
According to the recommendation Kammerer sent to the County Board’s Executive Committee on Thursday, his successor’s salary would range from $40,000 beginning Dec. 1 to $48,000 in 2000.
Kammerer has called for maintaining the chairman’s part-time status and hiring a full-time county administrator to handle day-to-day government affairs, a proposal that has met with little board enthusiasm.
“There’s no way (County Board chairman) is a part-time job. You can’t do it unless you’re retired or have a second income,” said St. Charles Republican Karen Steve-McConnaughay. “We don’t want a chairman who is financially strapped to the point where he can’t be here when he’s needed.”
When Kammerer, a retired businessman, became chairman in 1990, he was selected from among the 26 board members. Two years later Kammerer was elected to the post over Aurora Democrat Paul Clusen in the first-ever countywide popular vote.
Election by the people changes the dynamics, some board members said.
“When the status changed from a group of 26 electing the chairman to a countywide election, that made it a full-time job,” said Sugar Grove Republican Brad Sauer, who is leaving the board at the end of this year. “This should have been done (in 1992) but it wasn’t, so we should do it now.”
State statutes require that elected county officials’ salaries covering a four-year term be determined before the November election.
McCoy won a three-way contest for the Republican nomination in the March primary. Unless Democrats slate a candidate for November before the May 20 deadline, the Aurora Republican will run unopposed in the general election.
McCoy, who owns a civil engineering firm in Aurora, could not be reached for comment Thursday, but he has said he intends to approach the chairman’s position as a full-time job.
Also Thursday, the committee moved to slice the vice chairman’s pay to $5,000 for each of the next four years from $16,000. Vice Chairwoman Patricia Sjurseth (R-Elgin) is leaving the County Board this year after losing her primary bid for the chairmanship.
“This truly is a part-time job,” Sauer said. “There are no designated duties at this point.”
According to Kammerer’s recommendations, individual board members’ pay would increase to $10,000 next year from the current $7,800.
Pund said he also would move during Tuesday’s board meeting to freeze the pay of the county auditor, recorder of deeds, Circuit Court clerk and coroner, despite Kammerer’s recommendations for annual increases. The circuit clerk and recorder make $56,000 a year each, and the auditor and coroner are paid $58,000.
