The Niles Village Board voted recently to repeal a moratorium on raising salaries for trustees and the mayor because of recognition that terms limits made the freeze unfair, Niles mayor Andrew Przybylo said.
The nod came during the Oct. 24 Village Board meeting.
Just over a year after the Niles Village Board voted in favor of the moratorium – that was to be in effect through April 30, 2019 – the board voted to do away with the freeze and allow increases to take effect.
In September 2016, the board voted to delay approved salary increases after a survey showed the mayor and board made far below what others in the area make, officials said. At that time, the mayor was making $4,000 and trustees $2,500, according to village records.
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The approved increase in salary last year called for boosting the mayor’s salary to $11,400 and trustees’ salaries to $5,500, according to village records. But the board decided that everyone should receive the increase at the same time so it approved the moratorium along with the salary increases.
State law mandates that salary increases can’t begin until the end of an elected official’s term. Without the moratorium, Przybylo said, some on the board would have seen an increase right away as they began new terms and others would have had to wait two years.
“The moratorium was put in place in the first place so that all the trustees would get the increase in pay at the end of the next election cycle and then everyone would be uniform and get the pay raise together,” he said.
The village board Oct. 24 did not discuss its reasoning in voting to repeal the moratorium, but the mayor later said it had to do with recognition that term limits in Niles also made the moratorium unfair.
Niles limits the mayor to two terms and trustees to three terms, which means that some on the board would be cut out from higher compensation because they could not be reelected, he said.
Under the measure that was passed Oct. 24, the mayor and trustees can now receive the increase in pay that was approved last year.
“We tried to say to ourselves which way do you want it, which way is most fair,” Przybylo said. “Obviously, the board voted to make it fair this way in view of the term limits.”
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