Wilmette Board Sets Vote To Reconsider Cook County Minimum Wage

WILMETTE, IL — Wilmette trustees will reconsider their decision to reject Cook County's mandated sick leave and minimum wage increases next month. A second vote on the subject was scheduled for June 26, a day short of the one year anniversary of the village's vote to opt out of the county ordinances, Village President Bob Bielinski announced at a packed Committee of the Whole meeting. The board was presented a final report from the minimum wage and paid sick leave working group formed following the vote to study the changes in more detail.

A Cook County ordinance raised the minimum wage to $10 per hour ($11 in Chicago) on July 1, 2017 and is due to continue raising hourly wages by $1 every year until they reach $13 an hour in 2020. After that, wage increase will be tied to inflation and capped at 2.5 percent a year. The ordinance excludes employees of public bodies and unions, as well as youth and transitional employment programs. A separate ordinance requires that workers accrue paid sick leave.

Four days prior to the wage hike taking effect, Wilmette trustees voted 6-1 to opt out of the minimum wage ordinance. Trustees Julie Wolf, Daniel Sullivan, Sandra Plunkett, Kathy Dodd, Steve Leonard and President Bielinski opposed adopting the mandatory raises with only Trustee Joel Kurzman favoring them. The board separately considered the issue of sick leave. On that matter, Kurzman was joined in opposition to opting out by Leonard, who has since resigned from the board to be replaced by George Pearce.

The working group was formed last December by the village finance committee to provide trustees with more data about how the changes would impact Wilmette. The seven-person panel, helmed by former village president John Jacoby, produced a 436-page report.

"I think that folks who want to opt in have data in this report that supports their position and I think that folks who favor the status quo can also find data that supports their position," Jacoby told trustees. "Ultimately, it's up to this board to sort though all the data, decide what's the most important and make a judgement on this issue."

The report was praised by trustees and members of the public alike as a comprehensive examination of what it would mean for the village to opt in or remain outside of the county’s labor rules.

"It really was a wonderful report, I can't thank all of the residents who served on the working group enough," Bielinski said.

Among the highlights of the working group's report:

• 20 percent of employees in Wilmette are considered "low-wage" due to earning less than $1,250 a month.
• 54 percent of Wilmette business oppose the Cook County Minimum Wage Ordinance and 57 percent oppose the county's earned sick leave mandate, according to voluntary survey responses – received from 39 percent of the village's licensed business.
• 65 percent of Wilmette residents support the minimum wage ordinance and 67 percent support the paid sick leave changes, according to a scientific poll commissioner by a working group that it said had a 5 percent margin of error.
• Academic literature on minimum wage remains inconclusive on the effect of higher minimum wages on employment, although it has found, in general, the impact on employment to be negligible.
• Studies have found sick leave laws to be beneficial to public health — decreasing flu rates, the number of sick children in school and people delaying or forgoing needed medical care for themselves or family members.

More than 80 Cook County municipalities have opted out of the ordinances, although several of Wilmette's neighbors – Winnetka, Glencoe, Northfield, Skokie and Evanston – have gone along with the higher wages. Wilmette village staff sought to ask how it was going in those towns but none of them responded to survey questions.

Neighboring administrators who did respond declined to participate. They said the issue was "very sensitive in their business community" and they "did not want to spark additional discourse by participating, according to Wilmette's business development coordinator.

At the May 15 meeting to accept the working group's report, nearly 40 people spoke during public comment. They were about evenly split between supporters and opponents of the county rules.

Bielinski took an informal poll of attendees by asking for a show of hands. He said 56 people supported opting in, while 42 supported opting out.

An ordinance to repeal last year's vote and abide by the county labor rules will be introduced at the board's next meeting on June 12 before trustees vote on the matter a second time on June 26.

"I feel like we promised the community that we were going to address this issue within a year, if we could, and so if we adhere to that schedule we will be addressing it on practically a year to the day from the meeting where we opted out," Bielinski said.

Related:

• Wilmette Trustees Vote To Opt-Out Of Higher Minimum Wage, Mandated Sick Leave
• Wilmette Residents Rally For Higher Minimum Wage, Sick Leave
• Report Of The Working Group on Minimum Wage And Paid Sick Leave

Watch Wilmette Village Board Committee of the Whole May 15 Meeting

UPDATE: Wilmette Adopts Higher Minimum Wage, Reversing Last Year's Vote »