Sunday, August 17, 2008
Chicago Sun-Times
by MARK J. KONKOL

At a time when folks are being laid off, losing their homes to foreclosure and paying the highest sales taxes in the country, Cook County employee paychecks are getting fatter.

County workers who were not promoted to higher paying jobs received an average pay increase of about 8 percent between July 2007 and July 2008, an analysis of the county payroll shows.

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Donna Dunnings (left) says she warned commissioners against giving those raises, while Commissioner Larry Suffredin was among those who championed for the raises.
(Sun-Times file)

That's more than triple the 2.5 percent average pay hike workers in Illinois and four surrounding states received between June 2007 and June 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's also more than double the 3.8 percent cost-of-living pay hike top state officials received in July.

While much of county's wage increases were due to union contract negotiations, nonunion workers in mostly white collar jobs saw their pay increase, too.

In July 2007, county commissioners unanimously approved across-the-board pay raises for all nonunion employees. The idea was to create pay raise "parity" between union and non-union employees.

The move, championed by Commissioner Larry Suffredin, aimed to make up for not giving nonunion workers cost of living raises since 2004, as well as to boost morale and prevent "work actions."

"We need to pay people fair amounts or they leave," Suffredin said last week. "We needed to stabilize the work force, improve a serious morale problem, and I think we did that."

Board President Todd Stroger co-sponsored the plan with Commissioners John Daley, Mike Quigley and Suffredin. The County Board voted 17-0 in favor of the raises.

County Chief Financial Officer Donna Dunnings said she warned commissioners that giving those raises was "not good fiscal management," because the county at the time did not have the cash to pay for raises that were pledged for 2008.

To some extent, the pay increases paved the way for the county's controversial 1 percentage point sales tax hike. After the deal was struck, Stroger and Suffredin were both quoted as saying that the move guaranteed the need for new revenue.

Suffredin disputes Dunning's take on how the wage increase deal was struck.

"Just like everything about the Stroger administration, that's pure fiction," Suffredin said. "Stroger worked on this as a co-sponsor. They signed off on all the numbers. I'm tired of them trying to revise history because they're inept in how they run government."

On Friday, Stroger told the Sun-Times that he agreed to the wage increase for non-union workers because Suffredin and Quigley asked him to approve the raises before the 2008 budget was finalized. In turn, Stroger said the commissioners agreed to find the revenue to pay for the raises. Suffredin voted for the sales tax increase. Quigley did not.

In all, nonunion workers got a $1,000 bonus and a 3 percent pay increase in late 2007 and received 4.75 percent increases this year. Those wage increases stemmed from an effort by assistant state's attorneys to get pay raises equal to those of unionized public defenders.

Only Sheriff Tom Dart turned down the salary increase for some of his top staffers. In all, 42 members of his highest paid nonunion staff did not get the pay raise.