The following letter to the Northwest Herald is from Greenwood Township Trustee Kelly Liebmann and is printed here with her permission:
County Board Size a Political Battle
It is easy to control, manipulate, reward, and fund the campaigns of a limited number of candidates. Use the “Illinois Integrity Fund’s” illegal political activities and smear campaigns against candidates who would challenge our Chairman Franks as the example.
Cook County’s 17 commissioners earn $85,000 base pay plus benefits.
Kane County’s 24 board members earn a $25,000 annual salary with benefits packages exceeding $20,000.
DuPage County has a six district, 18 member board with salaries at $52,102 plus benefits.
McHenry County Board’s 24 part-time board members earn $21,000.
Benefits included, the McHenry County Board Members and Chairman cost taxpayers over $977,800 annually.
If the Chairman and Ad Hoc Committee on Governmental Consolidation were serious about saving money, simply remove health and dental benefits for part time board members.
At a 2016 Crystal Lake Town Hall, Franks said, “We will be addressing ending healthcare benefits for County Board and County Board Chair.”
Why is that not happening?
Chairman Franks is using taxpayer funded health insurance benefits as a bargaining tool to maintain certain board members’ votes in Franks’ favor.
At Franks’ 2016 Huntley Town Hall Meeting, he stated, “We are going to have a binding referendum and we are going to reduce the size of the county board and go to single member districts, and at the same time we will do term limits for the chairman.”
Will we see a term limit referendum for the chairman position on the countywide ballot in November?
I can guarantee the answer is no.
Its a part time job. They should not get health care. U have other county employees don’t have them
Single member districts, 20,000 population per member, no benefits, so much per meetings attended.
16 members now and additional if growth ever happens.
Non that would effectively give only one or two votes to the western half of the county.not a good idea at all
I meant nob
There are now 220 precincts. If you divide that by 16 you get 13 to 14 precincts per district.
Currently it averages 36 precincts per district.
So you could have the entire Harvard area out to Hebron and Greenwood in one.
Then you could have all of the Marengo/Union area plus part of Sun City in another.
That would cover almost all of the current District 6.
It would get 2 out of 16 votes or 1/8th. Currently it gets 4 out of 24 or 1/6th.
So there would be some dilution.
On the other hand, it would cost less to run for the position.
County Board campaigns are currently running around 10K to 20K.
That is a barrier for many people, and forces them to accept money from interested parties.
Plus each area would have someone who is accountable and can’t pass the buck to 3 other people.
So there are pluses and minuses.
If you didn’t have health insurance, I don’t know many people who would want to run to be on the Board.
People who clamor to abolish the health insurance are usually people who already have health insurance.
The same was true with the pensions.
The only Board Members who didn’t take pensions (which didn’t amount to much anyway) were the ones who already had them such as from the military, (where you can triple dip if you are disabled), or other government employment such as former township Road Commissioners or township employees, or former municipal employees, or state representatives.
Look at that last GOP primary. Many seats were uncontested.
No one want the job….
Well said Kelly!
As you well know this is one more step to Madigan like control of a shrunken County Board.
Less votes to buy or threaten into submission.
For the latest see : http://www.lyingjackfranks.com
BTW: You can’t term limit the Chairman or anybody else under Illinois law so that’s another empty campaign promise.
They need to cut the Chair’s pay to the lowest level allowable by law.
He has two full time assistants to do most of his job for him.
http://www.nwherald.com/2018/06/01/letter-keep-fighting-jack-franks/a37g06m/
Jack fan fighting back:
There is no lowest limit to the Chairman’s pay Billy Bob.
A County Executive’s pay has to be at least 150% of the county board members but since the elected Chairman is not a county board member, he doesn’t have to be paid anything really.
Also he doesn’t need to be included in the health insurance.
“Look at that last GOP primary. Many seats were uncontested.
No one want(s) the job….”
Above quote from KnownExtremist.
The reason is the County Clerk’s office is rigged with software that prevents the ‘wrong’ candidates from winning … even if they get the most votes!
If that were true Justin, why didn’t Mary win the judge race instead of finishing a distant third to two male candidates?
Billy Bob, the board never should have allowed Franks to hire 2 people with pension and health benefits to do his part time job.
I say keep the job at 80K but demand he cut the two employees doing his job.