Walkup Running for Nunda Township Supervisor Against Lee Jennings and Kate Williams

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Mike Walkup, the man who was a leading proponent for the consolidation of township government, has filed nominating petitions for Nunda Township Supervisor.

Walkup comes off a November election defeat by Jack Franks for the McHenry County Board Chairmanship.

He is running against incumbent Supervisor Lee Jennings and Cate Williams.

Williams is the President of the McHenry County League of Women Voters and Nunda Township Deputy Clerk..

Walkup attended the last Nunda Township Board meeting.  He describes what he said below:

“I was at the township meeting two weeks ago where I urged that the salary for Supervisor be set at no more than that of a County Board Member as the Supervisor had no discernible statutory duties that would require more than a few hours of work per week, whereas County Board Members were expected to work 20 hours per week.

“A Township Supervisor is only responsible for four things;

  1. distributing interim public assistance;
  2. overseeing township cemeteries;
  3. acting  as treasurer for the Road District; and
  4. chairing the once per month meetings of the Township Board.

“Everything else is fluff created to justify the bloated salaries.

“Interim assistance, for a township in which there is secretarial staff, should not take more than a few minutes of the Supervisor’s time per application.

“Nunda Township averages under 24 applications in most years.  That is two per month.

“Township cemeteries are small and mostly inactive and there is a cemetery board to oversee that.  Lawn mowing can be done by hiring a landscaping service.

“Payroll checks for the Road District can be, and in the case of Nunda, are, done by an outside payroll service so the Supervisor is limited to signing the checks.

“I calculate that the total amount of time for those three functions should not exceed a few hours in the entire month.

“For this the Nunda Supervisor is paid approximately $75,000 per year and just voted to give himself a pay raise each year for the next four years.

“By contrast, the Supervisor in Coral Township only earns about $7,000 per year.

“Taxpayers should be outraged at this township ripoff.

“It is probably the biggest government scam going.

“If elected I will reduce the salary of the Supervisor to no more than $21,000 per year at the first opportunity, and will reduce the staff and overhead levels at the Supervisor’s office.

“This should represent at least a 50% reduction in those costs by the end of my term.

“I will call it my ‘Cut 50% Plan.'”

Williams is a Republican Precinct Committeeman who was elected Secretary of the Nunda Township Republican Central Committee last spring.  She previously served as Township GOP Treasurer.

Walkup ran for Supervisor in 2001, but lost to write-in candidate John Heisler 866-737.

Heisler did not run for re-election four years ago.

Nunda Township Supervisor candidates Lee Jennings and Bridgett Provenzano.

2013 Nunda Township Supervisor candidates Lee Jennings and Bridgett Provenzano.  Jennings won by eleven votes–945 to 934. Placing third was Kerry Leigh with 421 votes, even though she withdrew from the contest before the election. In the general election, Leda Drain ran as an Independent.  She now works for Jennings.

That’s when Jennings took office, defeating Bridgett Provenzano and Kerry Leigh,who was on the ballot, even though she had withdrawn her candidacy. He went on to defeat Leda Drain, who ran as an Independent in the General Election.

Prior to a U.S. Supreme Court decision mandating that legislative bodies be apportioned according to population, all township supervisors served on county boards. As a sop to proportional representation there were “assistant supervisors” for the larger townships–Algonquin, Dorr, McHenry and Nunda.

Since that decision Ersel Schuster served as both Seneca Township Supervisor and on the County Board, so there is no reason to believe that Walkup could not hold both posts as well.


Comments

Walkup Running for Nunda Township Supervisor Against Lee Jennings and Kate Williams — 33 Comments

  1. Yes!

    Our current elected officials are kicking so much ass- we should elect as many of them as possible to as many other positions as possible!

    Great plan.

  2. After passing a resolution in 2013 against holding 2 taxpayer funded jobs, what does Walkup do?

    Run for another taxpayer funded job.

    I raised this concern in the general election campaign: Walkup is not doing this for public service.

    He’s doing this for the money and pension.

    How disappointing.

  3. Interesting.

    He works diligently to eliminate townships but now he is running for Supervisor.

    Any comment from Bob Anderson?

  4. “If elected I will reduce the salary of the Supervisor to no more than $21,000 per year at the first opportunity,..”

    Salaries were just set for the next 4 years at that last board meeting.

    Thus the first opportunity Walkup or anyone can try to change them is fall of 2020.

  5. Jack (Moderate): I am running for this so I can reduce the pay for that job which is way out of line with the duties as will be described in the coming weeks in more detail.

    You can’t do that unless you are there to vote on the salaries.

    They don’t listen to outside pressure.

    They didn’t even listen when Trustee Shorten tried to shave a modest $10K off of the salary of the Supervisor.

    He was the sole voice out of five.

    I spoke to this at Nunda and also went to an Algonquin Township meeting earlier in the year to say the same thing.

    Neither had any effect.

    You need a Supervisor and two other Board Members who will go along with that to get it done.

    We have some other reform oriented people running for the Board (including Mike Shorten), so we can hopefully have that ability.

    Once we do it, there will be ripple effects.

    The salaries got to be this way because past township boards used general increases in population to justify higher salaries across the board

    However, only the Assessor’s job correlates with population growth.

    The Road District usually loses mileage as a result of municipal annexations and the Supervisor’s job increases only minimally in terms of some increase in assistance applications.

    However, as the township government gets larger, staff is added to handle this so the Supervisor’s actual required time does not increase.

    Eventually you wind up with a big building that goes to waste so you start doing senior chair yoga classes and the like and now you are a Park District.

    This is the scam that the more urban townships have been running and it needs to be exposed.

    That can really only be done from the inside.

    For the record, you cannot reduce the salaries during the term.

    However, if you are not there in the office when it comes time to set the salaries for the next term, they will not be changed and the can will just be kicked down the road for another four years.

  6. You have to be some special kind of stupid, to pay some hinky dinky township official, $75 K a year.

    Send the bill to those nitwits who can’t live without their precious Townships.

  7. Mike Walkup:

    Will you be taking the pension as Twp Supervisor?

    Health insurance?

    How many more years until you will/would be vested in IMRF?

  8. While annexation takes some roads from Twh’s over time, new developments have taken place over the years to replace the lost miles of roads.

    Those new developments are more urban by design and most who bought there didn’t want higher municipal taxes for just a tad better police enforcement.

    With the County doing the NDR program, Twh roads in the most urban of Twh’s will increase Mike, as you dam well know.

    Your vote for NDR program increased Twh expenses which will mean hire levies or less service to the roads already dedicated.

    Not well thought out I’d say.

  9. I don’t think we are in disagreement Nob.

    I just think there needs to be an empirical way to determine what the salaries should be.

    Right now people just throw out vague statements like the one you made.

    If the roads have to be of higher grade, more were added due to Non Dedicated Roads begin taken in, or there is more traffic and more wear and tear and need for more repairs, that’s fine, but there should be some way to measure that objectively and develop a forumula accordingly instead of just pulling numbers out of the air.

    The Supervisor and the Road Commissioner, however, are separate offices and one doesn’t need to listen to the other and usually don’t.

    The only difference between God and a Road Commissioner is that one of them has a truck.

  10. “If elected I will reduce the salary of the Supervisor to no more than $21,000 per year at the first opportunity, and will reduce the staff and overhead levels at the Supervisor’s office.”

    Why not commit to reducing the salary and benefits to the $7,000 level set by Coral Township?

  11. Mike let me tell you “We Are All Pissed Off” at all of these bloated pensions and salaries we keep getting burdened with!

    You put this in writing now so this if your elected should do as you say! not as they do.

    As tax payers we are all full of the BS that is wasted by these Greedy people.

    Go out and find real jobs!

    stop trying to make a career off my tax dollars, I have enough to pay for as it is, I don’t need to make your salary too!

    Good Luck!

  12. Notice Mike fails to turn down the salary after having voted for a referendum preventing an elected official to hold two jobs.

    And, Mike, much to your disappointment, I’m not Franks.

  13. The primary election will be February 28, 2017.

    The general election is April 4, 2017.

    The newly elected (November 8, 2016) County Board members, and presumably the newly elected County Board Chair, will take their oath of office on Monday December 5, 2016 at 9AM.

    That will be during the County Board Organizational Meeting in the County Board Room in the Administration Building at the McHenry County Government Center at 667 Ware Road, Woodstock.

    In which case Monday December 5, 2016 will be Jack Franks’ first day in office as the inaugural voter elected McHenry County Board Chair.

    Jack Franks’ Cut10.org website, which redirects to CutMcHenryTaxes.com, says:

    “And know that I will introduce this plan on my first day as your new McHenry County Board Chairman.”

    “This means a 10% property tax levy reduction from EVERY government in our County.”

    Will Jack Franks provide the voters with a written plan on December 5, 2016?

  14. So Mike will get paid $75 K a year for 4 year in HOPES he can reduce the salary for the next four years.

    Nice gig.

    How are you going to run your “thriving” practice with two government jobs?

    This blog can keep blaming Democrats for their tax bill…..

  15. Walkup also failed to say he would not take the pension, he merely stated he would not “be eligible for the pension” (after only 8 years of “service”) but if Walkup “serves” 2 more years somewhere he’d get a cushy pension based of $75,000.

  16. Give Walkup a break.

    He is overcoming adversity with his paper allergy.

  17. Lots of huffing and puffing here so I decided to look at my tax bill.

    Nunda Township is only 1.09 percent of my very large tax bill, or $134.41.

    Heck, those of you in the CL library district would’ve paid more than that had the referendum passed.

    The two school districts (46 and 155) constitute 45.8% and 28.4% of my bill, respectively.

    Mike’s intentions are nice but fiscally irrelevant in the grand scheme of my taxes.

    Mark’s said it many times, focus on the schools.

    Or are they sacred cows?

  18. Nob:

    I’m not sure how you came up with this notion that the NDR program will increase the levies of Townships.

    VERY MISLEADING.

    IF, AND ONLY IF, the townships end up with any of the NDR roads, they will receive an increase in MFT – Motor Fuel Tax monies in addition to their current MFT receipts along with Brand New Roads built at County expense not townships.

    I know you only came to a few Transportation meetings, standing in the door way with your green army jacket on, but I’m sure you figured that much out and I’m sure you know that the NDR residents have been contributing the same levels of taxes as everyone else – both in property taxes and retail gas taxes at the pump – but never received anything close to services that Township & Municipal residents received.

    That’s why the two NDR votes at the county board passed OVERWHELMINGLY (like 19-2).

  19. Nick I never came to a any meetings with a green coat on.

    The only green army coat I own was from being in the Army, and I haven’t fit into since the 80s, unfortunately.

    While MFT funds will increase with extra mileage, the present funds aren’t enough to pave one road as it is.

    With 20 extra miles, about $35k in extra MFT funding a year, that will not pay for snow plowing for one season of those same 20 miles.

    The plan you voted on was that the TWh’s will receive those roads eventually, and there for more maintenance costs.

    Costs rise, so do levies or service cuts.

    Physics Nick, action reaction to a unfunded mandate no less.

    No the NDR owners are not paying as much as the rest of us.

    Location location, so when you live on smitty roads that effects value and related property taxes.

    I talked to a resident on a NDR and said the same thing and warned of higher taxes.

    They said they realized that and thanked me for telling them something they already knew.

    Higher levies for more roads, MFT is not even close to covering even the maintenance, less future resurfacing.

  20. Pandora’s Box Nick.

    Not that you will be hurted by it of course, after quitting the job.

  21. Kathy Bergan Schmidt, Moderate and Inish, so what’s your point?

    Are the other two candidates even willing to reduce the salary??

    Such stupid remarks on your part.

  22. I’m sorry, you are right, Walkup isn’t a hypocrite for running for a second taxpayer job after voting for a resolution to forbid such.

  23. The cash and checks from all these taxpayer jobs must play hell on his paper allergy.

  24. So Mike Walkup is FINALLY leaving the County Board?
    Because State law says you can’t be both a Township Supervisor and County Board member at the same time. Does this mean that Walkup’s County Board district will get some REAL representation for a change..?

  25. My point is that despite his diatribe about fighting for the taxpayer- he is clearly after a pay check.

    You can turn down the pay check.

    He will benefit from it until he leaves office.

  26. If Walkup really reduces the Supervisor’s salary …….. nobody will want it! So, Good Job Mike when you actually do it.

  27. I imagine drastically reducing the salary would make the job unpalatable for the next person, but the Supervisor really shouldn’t be doing anything beyond chairing the Board meetings anyway.

    The Board can review what the Road District and Assessor are doing with their budgets without having the Supervisor involved on an ongoing basis.

    Our county committees don’t sit on top of the various departments and sign their paychecks.

    We approve the budget at the end of the year and they come before us in between if they have supplemental needs.

    There is no need to have interim public assistance handled in 17 different locations.

    The County Board Chairman actually is empowered to do that now.

    There is no need for a Supervisor to sign the paychecks of one elected official (Road Commissioner) and not the other (Assessor).

    There is no need to monitor tiny township cemeteries which have boards anyway.

    There is no need for most of the job.

    I will pare it down to what it should have been in the first place.

  28. So, Mike, are you resigning your position on the County Board to run for Township Supervisor?

    Because the statute is explicit that a County Board Member can’t be a Township Supervisor at the same time…

  29. If Mike Walkup wins and writes a letter requesting his pay be reduced starting day 1 who would object.

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