Area Sewer Agency Secretive On Layoffs

BURR RIDGE, IL — The sewer agency that serves portions of eastern DuPage County is staying largely mum about why it laid off three employees earlier this month. The part-time members of the board that approved the layoffs each make more than $17,000 a year and are offered health insurance. They meet once a month.

Patch caught wind of the layoffs at the Burr Ridge-based Flagg Creek Water Reclamation District when it saw a Burr Ridge police report about it. Officers were asked to stand outside the facility while the agency terminated the employees. No problems occurred.

Late last week, Patch submitted a public records request about the layoffs. According to the minutes of an April 10 board meeting, the three board members unanimously voted to lay off the employees — the IT manager, the fleet manager, and a building and grounds maintenance mechanic.

The decision was made near the end of a meeting that concluded at 11:10 a.m. Police were on hand less than an hour later.

Patch reached the board's president, Herbert Stade, by phone Wednesday. Asked about the layoffs, Stade asked a reporter twice, "Why are you asking me?

Then he said, "It was a business decision."

He then hung up.

When Patch called Stade back, he would not provide any more information about the agency and again asked why the reporter was asking questions. He suggested Patch file a public records request.

A message left with the board's vice president, Barbara McGoldrick, was not returned. The board's clerk, Thomas Walsh, could not be reached for comment.

Michael Lynch, the district's treasurer, declined to answer questions, saying all information from the agency must come through the Freedom of Information Act process. Asked for executive director James Liubicich's contact information, Lynch declined to give it and said the director, too, would only divulge information through the records process.

The agency serves all or parts of Elmhurst, Hinsdale, Burr Ridge, Darien, Willowbrook and Oak Brook, among other towns.

Flagg Creek's three board members are chosen by the state representatives and senators in the district. Two of the board's three members receive health insurance through the district. It's rare for board members in any local government entity to get insurance through their part-time positions. Most have full-time jobs.

Flagg Creek's board positions are well paid compared to those in other entities. While Flagg Creek board members make $17,520 a year, the Burr Ridge mayor gets $6,000 and village trustees $3,000. Under state law, school board members are unpaid.

If you just count the meetings as the work Flagg Creek board members do, then they pull in $1,460 each time. That amounts to $24 a minute if a meeting that lasts an hour.

But board members in such situations often point to the homework they do before meetings and their dealings with constituents.

In Flagg Creek's case, the board members probably have few interactions with constituents. That's because the agency does not furnish their contact information on the website and informed Patch it would need to file a records request to get it.

The layoffs reduced the agency's head count to 30, from 33.