“Pekau even lowered his own pay by $110k a year” was written in a looping font and inconspicuously placed on a campaign mailer that came to our house.
I almost missed it.
What’s the history of this assertion?
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When the mayor won in 2017, it was on a single issue. Reduce the $150,000 salary for a full-time mayor with additional duties, down to $40,000.
The simplicity of that one issue pulled him into the winner’s circle.
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But what became of the salary issue?
The ordinance to roll it back came out of the Finance Committee (2018-0247) and was referred without recommendation to the Board of Trustees for a vote.
That was on March 4, 2019.
Jim Dodge made the initial motion to adopt it. The Board voted on it with nobody voting against it. Only Trustee Carroll was absent for the night.
The ordinance (5390) changed the position from full-time to part-time and the salary back down to $40,000, effective in April of 2021 (post-election).
What was interesting was that the mayor kept the $150,000 salary until it was rolled back by the ordinance in April of 2021.
Was he forced to take it as a result of some arcane state law?
No such law exists in Illinois.
Both Rauner and Pritzker refused their salaries while serving as governors.
Should he have refused all of it?
Of course not. Nobody ever suggested that. Still, this was the issue he ran on and then after he won, he just…kept it. All of it. As long as the law would allow.
Is the campaign material he sent out accurate? Did he, in fact, lower his own pay by $110,000?
Technically, yes…along with the rest of the Board.
Did he do it after taking office in 2017?
Technically, yes…about four years later.
