Committee Rejects New Employee, Plus Pay Hikes for Zoning Board of Appeals

Tuesday the Planning & Development Committee took on a decidedly fiscal conservative approach to McHenry County spending.

Two items to increase spending were on the agenda:

  1. Hiring a new person to handle water resources at a cost of almost $73,000
  2. Hiking the pay of members of the Zoning Board of Appeals

Committee member Mike Walkup posted the following in a comment under this article about the proposed hike in pay for Zoning Board of Appeals members (which may end up to have been inappropriately titled).

Mike Walkup

Mike Walkup

It was not approved but was sent back to the drawing board to determine if other efficiencies can be achieved such as scheduling more than one zoning petition for the same day.

Right now even if they are finished in a short time, they are paid the entire per diem plus mileage.

Each petition is given the entire schedule for that day regardless of the expected length of the proceeding.

Why this has been allowed to occur up to now is baffling to me.

Mary McCann

Mary McCann

On a separate note, after initially approving the addition of an additional employee to be in charge of stormwater issues, Member [Mary] McCann, who had initially voted with the majority, moved to rescind her vote and a new vote was taken defeating the proposal.

It had passed the Natural Environment and Resources Committee on a 6-1 vote (mine being the 1 against).

It now goes to Human Resources and then to Finance before going before the full Board.

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ZBA head Rich Kelly adds this to the discussion:

I just wanted to let you know that those were not proposed increases for the ZBA.

The finance department wanted to include the mileage reimbursement into the per diem.

The net figures to the ZBA are the same or less depending on the miles that member lives from the Government Ctr. unless they live in Woodstock.

Rich Kelly


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