Village President Kevin Brusek has directed the Village Board to re-examine the controversial issue of dividing the comptroller and clerk roles.
Brusek acted after Bruce Young, representing a group calling itself Citizens for Good Government, presented a petition with 275 signatures which asked for reinstatement of Village Clerk Kate Hellmann to full-time work as both clerk and village collector.
For years in Richmond, the two positions had been combined. But last April, then Village President Sue Klouda, with the approval of the Village Board, divided the jobs, created a new comptroller’s position to do much of the collector’s work, and appointed Mary Buchert as comptroller at $22,000 a year.
Klouda’s move demoted the elected village clerk, Hellmann, to a part-time position at reduced pay of $5,000 a year. Hellmann had defeated Buchert for village clerk in the April election, but Buchert was an ally of Klouda. When the clerk’s job had formerly combined the positions of clerk and collector, the position had paid $27,000 a year.
But Klouda resigned as village president last month and moved to Bull Valley. Brusek, a senior trustee on the board, was voted acting president.
