Recent actions by the DuPage County Board, of which I am a member, are very disturbing and should be a red-flag alert for taxpayers.
First, the board voted to tell a judge it wants the taxpayers to foot the bill up front for the legal fees of the DuPage Seven without any provision for recouping the money should they be found guilty.
Next, the board voted large and unjustified pay raises for the incoming chairman and members of the board as well.
I opposed both of these resolutions for the same reason: The costs to the taxpayers are not justified.
In the case of the DuPage Seven, my position has always been to reimburse the defendants who are found to be innocent. Taxpayers should not be required to pay for the defense of a criminal.
The pay raises are clearly unjustified. In the case of the chairman, the board greatly diminished the workload of that position by hiring a full-time administrator at $137,000 a year in 1996. In light of this, a salary increase from $49,000 to $92,000 over the next four years is certainly not in order. And the board members do not deserve raises that are clearly several times greater than the current rate of inflation.
My concern is that the departure of Chairman Gayle Franzen may have signaled the beginning of a new era that includes loose and irrespon-sible spending of tax money.
