Moustis' Double-Dipping Textbook Worthy: Gallagher

You have to hand it to Jim Moustis. He’s a pretty smart cookie. If he wrote a book, I’d buy it.

Unlike some questionable politicians who navigate legal loopholes to get a little somethin’ somethin' extra, Moustis is an overachiever. He not only double dips, but he double-double dips.

As a the Will County Board Speaker from District 2, Moustis advocated that the board vote to drop the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF). In fact, board meeting notes from 2016 show he didn’t just advocate for it, he was salivating for it.

There’s no wonder. The loophole allows Moustis to legally collect his $24,000 salary as board member, in addition to his IMRF pension — as if he were retired. But he’s not. See what I mean? Smart cookie.

Collecting an IMRF pension while still serving on the county board is not just a Republican thing. Three other board members, including one Democrat, are also cashing IMRF checks — but for nowhere near as much money.

Jackie Traynere (D- District 4) gets $485.41 per month; Tom Weigel (R- District 12) gets $806.64 per month; and Chuck Maher (R-District 11) gets $1,034.61 per month, according to IMRF.

Meh. That's just regular double-dipping. A pittance! And so what if they earned it?

Moustis takes it up a notch.

As supervisor, Moustis is also milking the Frankfort Township cow earning the fat salary of $86,900 a year — which got a bump from $74,291 in 2016.

Putting it into perspective, in 2016 neighboring township supervisors earned: New Lenox $43,250; Green Garden $10,500; Joliet $70,845; and Homer $47,042, according to the Better Government Association, Illinois’ Non-Partisan Full-Service Watchdog.

Other than hefty pay differentials, Moustis is unlike his neighbors in other ways,too, since he is the only one of them collecting IMRF pension for his township as well.

According to IMRF, Moustis is currently receiving a combined $6,651.35 a month in pension for the two elected positions he is currently not retired from. That makes him earning a total of $190,716 a year on the taxpayers’ dime.

Not a bad gig.

Quadruple dipping is pretty impressive even by Illinois standards.

My bet is Moustis is hoping voters don’t notice. In fact, he defined his district's geography to help keep himself elected. That’s not unusual. Democrats do that, too.

In Frankfort, voting for Moustis is as automatic as putting on socks, which surprises me in the wake of the Lawrence Wyllie indictment.

Moustis is no dummy. When he got a Democrat challenger — a real live, honest-to-goodness person with skill and competencies, (and not just a ballot placeholder), Moustis shut her up.

Amanda Koch is the Democratic candidate from Manhattan, the outreaching area of his District 2 that Moustis pretends doesn't exist. She asked to debate Moustis and Republican candidate Keith Ogle, but the two Republicans declined. They hid behind Republican Organization Chairwoman Laura Miroballi’s quote “we’ve never had a forum or debate between candidates.”

Koch has spent 12 years in military service including two years as Military Police in Iraq and Afghanistan. One might suppose that Moustis is afraid to face her if for no other reason than she could snap him in half.

Shutting her out is pretty smart, I'd say. Otherwise, the automatic sock wearers may notice there is a woman on the ballot with a brain. And Ogle is no dull tool, either. Moustis is smart to keep them down to prop himself up.

Maybe Moustis is keeping mum for other reasons. The Herald News claims he did not respond to the questionnaire sent to everyone on the ballot.

What is Moustis hiding that he won’t debate his challengers and won’t respond to his constituents?

NorthPoint’s 2,200-acre trucking facility is a good reason to duck and cover. It’s a direct threat to the red-headed step children of his district in Manhattan and Green Garden. But Moustis has flip-flopped on the issue when politically convenient.

Last year, when NorthPoint first presented to the county board, Moustis supported it. He said that since the old WWII arsenal is in the same neck of the woods, “the traffic has always been there,” and “this is not something that would be new.” (Read that report here.)

Perhaps Moustis is too busy counting his fat bank roll to learn the facts, such as the Midewin Heritage Association puts the arsenal's peak employment at 20,000 people in July 1942, with about 5,000 carpooling vehicles.

Granted, I learned so-called new math, but it seems to me that Moustis might be confusing where to put the decimal point if he thinks the 5,000 cars in 1942 in anyway compares to NorthPoint's daily ramrod of 30,000 trucks and 32,000 employee cars.

When up for re-election, when it was politically convenient, Moustis chastised NorthPoint for submitting an incomplete application, beckoning the multi-billion dollar, foreign-owned developer to withdraw. Now that microphones are off and NorthPoint recently completed its application to Will County, where does Moustis stand?

Yep, I hope Moustis writes a book.

It’s times like these that I most miss my political journalism professor, George Reedy, who learned a thing or two as press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson. This is just the sort of topic we'd gnaw at around the discussion table.

Whether you consider Moustis’ tactics lazy, or lily-livered, or just plain half-a-loaf, it’s textbook material.

That’s a book I’d buy.

Two years ago, some Republicans were chanting "drain the swamp." It’s a good thing for Moustis that Frankfort is on dry land.

Erin Gallagher is a community relations consultant who works with clients and issues on both sides of the aisle. She can be reached via www.ErinGallagher.net.