Bensenville Official Buys $54K Car For Job

BENSENVILLE, IL – Bensenville's new village manager got a benefit after he was hired this summer – a $54,000 Ford Explorer as his village vehicle.

Daniel Schulze's predecessor got a $400-a-month car allowance, amounting to $4,800 a year.

On Sept. 3, the village got the SUV for Schulze about five weeks after he took the helm.

In Elmhurst, with a population 2½ times the size of Bensenville, the manager does not get a city vehicle, but receives a $500-a-month car allowance.

The vehicle for Darien's city manager is a 2017 Ford Escape, which is smaller and cheaper than a Ford Explorer.

In response to Patch's questions, Schulze said that in the interest of good government, he decided it was better to have a car that was only used for village business.

He also noted that he had a take-home car the entire seven years that he served as chief.

Since the pandemic, Schulze said, it's been difficult and sometimes impossible to get car parts. In some cases, it takes the village up to a year to get new vehicles.

"To get around that, we usually buy one extra car, so this year we bought one extra car in March and had it in our inventory," Schulze said in an email. "When I became village manager, I took that car, which was a Police (Ford Explorer) Interceptor – of course, with no police equipment on it."

During the summer, a driver turned into the oncoming lanes in front of one of the officer's Interceptor patrol cars, Schulze said. The insurance company declared the squad car totaled, with only 4,000 miles on it.

Near the end of a model year, the dealer did not have a vehicle similar to the one that was totaled, so Schulze's car, with only 2,000 miles on it, went to the police department.

The dealer had a black civilian Explorer available, and it cost slightly more than the Interceptor, Schulze said.

Patch asked the manager why the village did not choose a smaller car. He said it was because the village had standardized its fleet.

"In doing so, we can stock common items from wheels to water pumps, and the village employs 2 full-time mechanics that do all of our work in-house. We can also mount and balance our own tires," Schulze said. "This allows us to be more resistant to supply chain issues due to unforeseen circumstances, whether it be COVID recession or any other reason."

The village bought the Explorer from Bensenville's Roesch Ford. From 2018 to 2024, the dealer gave Village President Frank DeSimone $6,300 in campaign contributions. He ran unopposed for re-election in 2025.

In March, Patch reported that Roesch Ford and 13 other village vendors had contributed to DeSimone's campaign since the previous summer.

In late July, the Village Board approved Schulze, then the police chief, as the new manager, paying $225,000 a year.

Schulze and DeSimone both retired from the Schiller Park Police Department, where they worked as detectives. DeSimone was president when the village hired Schulze.

In November, Schulze, who became the chief in 2018, was appointed interim manager after the board fired Evan Summers, who served eight years. The board did not explain its reasoning for the ouster.

After firing Summers, the board set a referendum for April in which voters would change the form of government, giving the village president greater powers.

It also enacted an ordinance that would have spiked DeSimone's pay to $157,000 if the referendum passed, up from $38,000. The mayor in Elmhurst gets $8,400 a year.

Two-thirds of voters rejected the proposal.