Evanston City Manager Among Highest Paid in Illinois

[NORECIRC)

Written by Joe Vince, Patch Editor

A collection of North Shore village and city managers made a dubious list compiled by Forbes magazine recently.

And Evanston's Walter Bobkiewicz is among the top ten.

But Bobkiewicz' $232,671 yearly salary isn't the highest on the North Shore, and three other area city managers make more per year despite managing municipalities with smaller populations.

Forbes found in Illinois that "72 small-town city and village managers out-earn every governor of the 50 states" as part of its 2016 "Big Dogs" of municipal government list for the state. In that group, managers from Glenview, Northbrook and Lake Forest joined Bobkiewicz on the top 10 highest pensionable salaries in the state.

Here's how the rankings shake out when it comes to North Shore city managers:

• No. 1: Lawrence Hileman, Glenview village manager, $303,076 (pop. 45,417)
• No. 2: Richard Nahrstadt, Northbrook village manager, $263,392 (pop. 33,170)
• No. 5: Robert Kiely, Lake Forest city manager, $256,196 (pop. 19,375)
• No. 9: Walter Bobkiewicz, Evanston city manager, $232,671 (pop. 75,570)

The magazine also found that "[a]nother 111 local employees of water districts, airport districts, park districts, counties, forest preserves, mass transit districts, health clinics and planning districts also earn more than the 50 governors."

Forbes list, which is put together by contributor and OpenTheBooks.com founder Adam Andrzejewski. Last year, there were only 52 small-town village and city managers who earned more than all 50 governors.