Burr Ridge has given its village administrator a raise for the first time in three years.
Village Administrator Steve Stricker will be given a 2 percent raise, taking his $172,000 salary to more than $175,000.
The decision came after a closed-session meeting that included Stricker’s annual evaluation.
“The board unanimously agreed to give Steve Stricker the same cost-of-living increase – 2 percent – that the other village employees receive,” Mayor Mickey Straub said.
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“Overall, the feeling is he’s doing great,” Straub said. “We are very thankful for the work he is doing.
“There was some feeling that there is opportunity for improvement, that there are some things we would like to see accomplished.”
Straub said that Stricker has not received a raise the past two years, though last year he received a $1,000 bonus.
Stricker also has a village-financed vehicle and an expense account.
Straub said the village looked at DuPage County at large and at local municipalities under 20,000 people when trying to see where Burr Ridge’s village administrator falls in compensation.
“He falls in the middle of the pack to a little above the middle of the pack,” Straub said.
Straub, who would like to see changes in public employee compensation and pensions, said that pay for village administrator positions, in general, is higher than their equivalents in private companies.
“I would not call it exorbitant and salaries are what the market will bear. We can’t change the system with one person,” Straub said. “I want to have input on public pay and public pensions. I would love to have a greater impact on those issues statewide. But it is the system we have created. I am shocked by some of those numbers.”
Stricker has been in the village administrator role in Burr Ridge for 25 years.
“He is one of the most qualified and accomplished administrators,” Straub said. “He is well respected in the industry. He has done a great job in the village.”
There were public comments both in favor and against Stricker’s job performance as village administrator both before and after the board’s vote.
Former village trustee Dolores Cizek, who now lives in La Grange but frequently attends board meetings, said Stricker presented a “dishonest budget” to residents.
She said the village’s 2015-16 budget has $17.3 million in revenue and $18.1 million in expenditures.
Stricker has said in budget presentations that the budget is balanced as there is revenue from previous years, such as money allocated for road projects that were deferred from prior years, but will spent this year. Even though the road projects show up as expenses this year, the money is already in the village coffers from previous years, Stricker noted.
“He is shifting funds,” Cizek said. “The budget is not balanced. There is an $800,000 deficit. That is a big deficit.”
Longtime Burr Ridge resident Marty Gleason said Stricker brings “institutional knowledge” to the position which needed to be weighed by trustees.
“No one has the knowledge of this place or the expertise that he does,” Gleason said.
Resident Conrad Fialkowski said the way Stricker treated former Police Pension Board member Tom White during heated budget and pension fund talks last fall was unprofessional.
“Mr. White was told he was supposed to represent the administration,” Fialkowski said. “Any board member brings his own experiences … He was not there to represent village management.”
Alice Krampits said Stricker should have been more on top of the water meter problems that occurred in the village and cost many residents severely when corrections were done.
“The village administrator was not monitoring things,” Krampits said. “Some residents paid a hefty cost for corrections and, in some cases, the village lost revenue.”
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Kevin Beese is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.