Letter: Rep. Conroy's Bill to Eliminate Forest District Commissioners' Salaries is Disingenuous

I couldn’t agree more with Rep. Deb Conroy (D-46, Elmhurst) when she says in her April 3 letter to the editor that elected officials have an obligation to lead by example and do their part to fix out-of-control, unnecessary government spending.

But it’s disingenuous of Rep. Conroy to pretend that she’s fixing out-of-control, unnecessary government spending when her sole focus is the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, one of the most productive local taxing bodies in the state. The Forest Preserve District has a AAA bond rating, clean audits and a financial surplus that helps provide taxpayers with high-quality services that bring value to the entire DuPage community. With more than 25,000 acres of land in 60 forest preserves, 600 acres of lakes, 47 miles of rivers and streams, 145 miles of trails, education centers and hundreds of programs, it offers DuPage County residents a quality of life unrivaled in other communities.

Rep. Conroy essentially seeks to eliminate the salaries of the seven elected officials at the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County because they are “drastically out of line with our neighboring counties,” but her statement is untrue. In fact:

1. Forest Preserve District commissioner salaries were established in 2002 to mirror those of the DuPage County Board, which puts them “in line” with their counterparts.
2. Before the boards split, in addition to their regular salaries, DuPage County’s 24 board members received an additional $3,000 for Forest Preserve-related issues. The number of commissioners on the County Board dropped to 18, with six serving on behalf of the Forest Preserve District. Taxpayers saw over $200,000 in savings just by voting for the split.
3. In many instances, neighboring counties simply don’t have the same structure as DuPage and continue to pay their county commissioner salaries and forest preserve stipends.

But Rep. Conroy wouldn’t know any of this. She has yet to meet with me or any of our elected commissioners to understand how our Forest Preserve District operates. She even admitted in committee hearings that she had no idea that the Forest Preserve District went to public referendum to support our programs and services.

Rep. Conroy says she introduced HB2377 to give voters the opportunity to eliminate the compensation of DuPage County’s six Forest Preserve commissioners and president. She says that if her bill passes, the power to cut politician pay would be placed directly in the hands of the voters.

But let’s be clear: That bill will only provide voters with the ability to vote on the salaries of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County’s seven elected officials, not the salaries of any other elected official—or state representatives, for that matter. If Rep. Conroy really wanted to have an impact, her bill should allow taxpayers the opportunity to vote on ALL politicians’ salaries. And I daresay that voters would want those salaries to be directly tied to politicians’ effectiveness. At the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, service and value are clear. At the state, nothing is.

The “extravagant compensation packages” Rep. Conroy believes Forest Preserve commissioners are receiving amounts to $1.56 for an average property owner with a home valued at $300,000. In these hard economic times, she should be focused on enacting state legislation that addresses some of the state’s bigger financial problems instead of obsessing with neighborhood politics. The people elected her to address state-wide issues after all, and she shouldn’t be inserting herself into local affairs.

Rep. Conroy said she will be circulating a petition to gain support for her legislation. Unless her petition also includes her salary and those of all local, county and state politicians, taxpayers shouldn’t be fooled into signing it.

—D. “Dewey” Pierotti Jr., president, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County