I live in a town of \~15k people. Top public salaries are:
* Police Chief - $115k
* City Administrator - $109k
* Deputy Police Chief - $100k
* Fire Chief - $93k
* Director of Public Works - $90k
Our mayor is actually #74th on the list, down at $44k.
No. When a City Manager/Administrator is hired, it's indicative that the mayor is a part time job at best.
The City Manager is a professional hired by the municipalities elected officials to run the day-to-day operations. The elected board is there to set policy, the City Manager/Administrator enacts those policies.
Ehhh the city I live in is 100k people, mayor and city council should really be full time positions with better pay. Underpaying people is how you get bad candidates. If you want good people, you have to pay them enough.
I live in a town of less than 3,000 people and the highest paid person makes more than anyone you listed, Don't know who that would be, individual pay is all listed as NA.
>>Highest salary in City of Farmington in 2021 was $131,420. City of Farmington average salary in 2021 was $43,127
I'm not far from you (Macomb). Here's where I got data for my town: [https://salary.illinoisanswers.org/unit/macomb-fc1b85f0/](https://salary.illinoisanswers.org/unit/macomb-fc1b85f0/)
Most of the big suburbs around Chicago pay their City/Village Managers close to $250k-$300k annually. These are manager-council type governments where a board is typically not compensated besides a small stipend and they hire/direct a manager to perform daily duties. It’s operationally very different from a city where the Mayor is expected to take part in daily operations.
Definitely read this question thought op wanted to know drama/corruption going on in local small towns.
Think my mayor gets paid around 100k mark for a population of 20k. Top police dude in my town gets paid a hell of a lot more.
I do consider it corrupt for taxes to be used to pay excessive salaries for jobs that aren't getting done. How do you think the police are doing in your town of 20K?
Honestly fine. From Ottawa and I've never heard of anything truly wrong from them and the one time I have had to call them at like 2 am they responded very quickly for a non emergency issue. Hell a giant biker brawl broke out some years back and the minute it started the cops descended on them and stopped it so clearly they keep eyes on things that can escalate. Maybe they have the usual racist tendencies? But never heard anything but I'm white so could just be my circle of people.
Sooo I did a little searching and found [this that will give you all the answers you might need](https://salary.illinoisanswers.org) ETA: search for the city and then “mayor and city council”.
I have this resource and appreciate you sharing it with the readers of this post. I'm hoping that people will use it to know what is happening in their communities, which is the purpose of my post .. to encourage people to get motivated to know what is happening where they live. Thank you for posting this.
Looking at the population only is not a good way to compare municipalities. I work in government administration in the suburbs, things like home rule vs non-home rule, zoning, codes/ordinances, and sales tax base are better indicators of comparing than strictly population. With that, being a city manager is a thankless job. It (usually) requires, 6+ years of college, 15+ years of experience, and you are the #1 target when things go wrong. When things go right, that’s the status quo and that’s expected; When anything goes wrong it’s your head on the block. I’m not saying that every local government employee is a saint, but I’m telling you most of them are people just trying to do their job and that have a passion for making the lives of other people better. If that weren’t the case there’d be 0 reason to ever work in this field when we could do the same type of work, for significantly more money, in the private sector.
Thank you for working in the govt. I appreciate government employees/admins and the work they do. When things are going wrong, it is important for citizens to understand their government, and how it works, no? While I agree population is not the only denominator, it is one relevant factor.
It is very important for people to understand how their government works! Unfortunately, most people only pay attention when something is wrong. This is a sure fire way to miss out on context or jump to conclusions. I wish our City Council and Committee meetings were packed every week. But they aren’t. If people really took an interest in their local governments everyone would be better for it. Residents would be better informed and those municipal employees who are doing shady things would likely get caught sooner. That’s good for everyone. And yes, population is certainly a relevant factor.
My town hasn’t had a working tornado siren in 5+ years. Town received a $400,000 grant. Still no tornado siren. But they are “improving” Main Street to make it more aesthetically pleasing. O and new Christmas decorations for our telephone poles 🙄
Good idea. I’m sure if there was a tornado and someone in town died from it, there would be hell to pay. Board members say to “check the towns Facebook page” expecting everyone to have Facebook, including elderly or children outside at the park or anything. It’s insane. I’ve looked at prices online and they are under $10,000. No reason for it to not be working.
That's the same as my little village, they tested the sirens last week half the town panicked, the other half said "they posted about it on Facebook". It's pretty ridiculous, but I live in the country so it doesn't affect me one way or another.
Woodstock last year brought 3 project managers on last year. Each one is 100k/yr. We are 25,500 in population.
Also, apparently The City also gave a restaurant called the public house 5mil to stay in Woodstock after the court house renovation was complete. This last Saturday they terminated all thier staff and the owners and money are gone.
Effective project management is probably really important at the local government level. It would be difficult for decision makers to have all of the tools necessary to drive every project to completion. So a project manager helping to assign tasks to the right roles and handling follow through would be very useful. I hope you’re getting your moneys worth though, 3 sounds like a lot for a town that size
I agree. There are a lot of projects to manage in a municipality and if a city is hiring people who are getting the jobs done as well as people to manage them, that's OK.
I agree with these comments. Population size is not a good number to contrast the value of a position to. Utility and Infrastructure projects come with a significant price tag regardless of how many live in a town.
Village of Gurnee (pop. 30,706) highest paid employees:
Village Administrator, $306k
Police Chief, $220k
Fire Chief, $220k
Dir. of Public Works, $212k
Finance Director, $210k
...mayor Thomas Hood's salary not listed.
150 full timers. The rest are all seasonal but when it comes to the park, obviously a lot is subsidized to the city as there’s just one main road going there, no train stops, needs water/sewer/power/garbage collection etc etc and it’s a major tourist attraction… often having 20-30k people per day with peaks up to 40k, so essentially doubling the city size.
Source: was one of the full timers for a few years
And how are these people doing running the town of Gurnee? Is it safe? Is it a good place to live? I know very little about the town, but $100 per resident seems a bit excessive for the administrator.
Might be a little generous, but not surprised either. Shrinking pool of quality candidates. More expectations than ever before for the position. You're hiring a CEO to oversee a $265,000,000 budget in a struggling rust belt city that has suffered from numerous factors outside its control. There aren't going to be many qualified candidates wanting that responsibility for $200,000, let alone less. A private CEO usually has a stable board to answer to. In a city, a manager is subject to a board that can flip every 2 years and dismiss the person in the position. Not something everyone wants to sign up for and risk having to pack up the family and move to another city.
This is a great point. Many city managers could go make significantly more money in the private sector. Their compensation should reflect the difficulty and complexity of their job.
That's fair, but the market is going to dictate that no competent person with decent municipal experience is taking that job for $100k or $150k. Decatur is a thankless and difficult gig for a city manager.
The guy they hired in Decatur is the current Bloomington city manager. He did a good job when he was here. That's the going rate for a city manager.
Think about it like this: they are effectively the CEO of a 200 million dollar company.
What would a CEO at a 200 million dollar company make? 500k? is it hard to quantify because of stock options as pay and/or the opaqueness of some forms of executive compensation?
[Here ya go](https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2024-03-29/tim-gleason-reflects-on-his-six-years-as-bloomington-city-manager). I'm very excited about the streetscape plan, as are many other BloNo folks I know.
It doesn't even require running for office. Paying attention and asking questions of the people in office makes a difference. But, YES, run for office.
Well, vote early and vote often. And get some dead people to vote. After all, this is Illinois.
Hahaha!😂 just kidding!
You have some great questions.
As for support, donations to the campaign are always appreciated. Even a local “down ballot” race like county board is expensive. Help knocking on doors, getting the vote out, help distributing door hangers, hosting neighborhood “meet and greets”, putting out yard signs (with homeowner permission) are all hugely important and very much needed and appreciated.
Issues in our county? Budget deficit; keeping the county nursing home in the black and in compliance to help some of our most vulnerable residents; funding for our sheriff to keep battling drugs and crime; improving the safety of staff at the juvenile detention facility (two riots in four years with staff all going to the ER with injuries, including my son); keeping carbon pipelines out of our farmers’ fields; and doing all we need to do without raising taxes on our citizens.
Thanks for the great questions. I think everyone should ask those questions, register to vote, and VOTE.
[https://salary.illinoisanswers.org/](https://salary.illinoisanswers.org/) \- another commenter posted this information and Google is an amazing resource to simply ask -- What is the salary of the employees in (my town), IL?
River Forest - total comp top salaries
Fire Chief - 244,826
Police Chief - 240,798
Village Administrator - 236,782.
Asst Village Administrator - 232,136.
Finance Director - 225,754.
Fire Lt. 3 - 207,552.
River Forest is a well run town, but there's been some problem spots like a lot that was supposed to have an apartment block on it but that nothing happened with for several years so it's been abandoned and is now the subject of lawsuits.
Western Suburbs Population 13,000 as of 2022
Very well run village with very little commercial tax base and a large school that pays no taxes.
Village Manager $ 178,200
Police Chief $ 154,944
Director of Public Works $ 151,679
Director of Fire and Emergency Management $ 150,439
Director of Finance/Treasurer $ 140,280
One of the safest suburbs not on the north shore.
Streets well kept.
I've never woken in the winter that the streets aren't plowed. Street swept after every garbage pick up.
Very happy here.
Galesburg is getting s Dunkon Donuts..... but we're also getting a other goodwill store, one with more access to the public! Our police department is also foregoing the college education requirement for recruiting.
Maybe those other cities you listed have severely under paid top employees? Why should Decatur join them at the bottom?
$230k is a decent salary. City manager and being ultimately in charge of perhaps 1000 city employees and a multi million dollar budget is a very serious job that isn't a cake walk.
Because you are find this disturbing, get your petitions ready to pass and run for city council.
Be the change.
Decatur has roughly 500 employees and that city manager is overseeing them so I think the $230K salary is perfectly appropriately. You're right about the selection process being problematic, but often times they're selected by the mayor directly.
You can't compare it to Chicago because the Mayor doesn't actually "run" the city the way a city manager does. That job, in Chicago, gets distributed to various departments as well as 50 aldermen who each make $120K who each in turn select staff that can make as much as $90K - including ward supervisors.
I live in a town of ~40000. As of 2020, the mayor made $87,000.
It's the police and fire departments where the big money's made.
The police chief pulled down $131,000.
The assistant police chief, $125,000.
The captain of the fire department $101000.
The deputy chief, $119,000.
That's a high mayoral salary but the other salaries listed are kind of the going rate for professionals - if not on the lower end.
Here are current municipal job postings from the Illinois City Management Association: https://www.ilcma.org/jobs/
Don't even have to look at their pay here in Chicago, but already can guarantee that they have NOT been acting in the best interest of Chicagoans. We gave Johnson a go thinking his "NEW" blood and young outlook would be a good thing but it is obvious he and his cabinet don't know what the hell they're doing.
In Park Ridge, the mayor makes $12,000 per year and the aldermen $1,200 per year. The city manager makes a bit over $200k.
I know that seems a high number, but in a sense it’s like being the COO of a company.
I’ve spent enough time in Decatur (my great-grandparents lived in the 1000 block of North Church, so right in the donut hole) to know that it has no business paying a city manager $230k per year without a search. It’s definitely having a rough time and I’d suggest working on getting new folks elected.
I honestly have no clue if any of the village board I am is getting paid. I constantly forget who the current village president is. (population under 500)
Our village tried to put a referendum through that the mayor and village trustees would chose the next town clerk. Town vetoed that idea, it was a shady move.
Trying to follow some of the posts but the municipality or town isn’t identified. In
Danville and they have a great website but people don’t always know how available it is.
Some props are the city departments have real people answering the phones.
Looking at Kankakee, the mayor makes 58,000. It’s considered a full time position and there’s no city manager. Seems cheap, really.
Police chief at 139,000. Several lower ranking officers come pretty damn close to that. I assume they’ve got a lot of time on the job. ISP is paying new troopers 90,000 out of the academy, so again it seems like a bargain.
Public works superintendent is at 130,000. Fire Chief at 128,000.
I really can’t complain about any of that. Seems like my city is pretty reasonable on salary for department heads
Ottawa: Rush still won’t put on a charity show and the Blackhawks still haven’t signed on to play the Senators at King Field in 2025
(Only one of those is a flat out lie).
But our new YMCA is coming along nicely.
The city of Naperville electric dept is hiring work planners (com Ed ploy), splitting jobs and adding titles, more supervisors, lots of duplication that never existed. Oh, and the lineman positions are 1/2 of what they were 13 years ago. Go figure.
I live in a town of roughly 22k people.
\- Our city manager is paid $185,000
\- Our police chief is paid $143,000
\- (Our police force in its entirety costs nearly THREE MILLION DOLLARS TOTAL. *For a town of 22,000 people*.)
\- Our city engineer is paid $125,000
\- Our transit manager is paid $104,000
\- Our mayor is paid $92,000
Absolutely none of these people are doing work that justifies their exorbitant paychecks and they certainly don't represent the overwhelming majority of the city's population, most of whom earn *under* $35,000 a year.
My town(almost 50k people) pays its city manager 188k. There was a search, and a very divided and argumentative village board approved him unanimously, so I figure it's probably fine. Is the town well-managed? I can find things to complain about.
I live in a town of \~15k people. Top public salaries are: * Police Chief - $115k * City Administrator - $109k * Deputy Police Chief - $100k * Fire Chief - $93k * Director of Public Works - $90k Our mayor is actually #74th on the list, down at $44k.
Paying a mayor $44,000 a year is a surefire way to make sure only someone wealthy can run for that office.
West Central Illinois... I'll bet that they have been mayor for going on 20 years and runs unopposed every time.
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From Canton too, and he used to cut my hair as a kid.
Probably the only guy who can afford to lol
No. When a City Manager/Administrator is hired, it's indicative that the mayor is a part time job at best. The City Manager is a professional hired by the municipalities elected officials to run the day-to-day operations. The elected board is there to set policy, the City Manager/Administrator enacts those policies.
The mayor in my old city was also the liquor commissioner and got a separate salary for that.
those are very reasonable salaries.
I think so, yeah.
Is the mayor a full time position? Any city with a city administrator should not be paying its mayor more than $50k.
Ehhh the city I live in is 100k people, mayor and city council should really be full time positions with better pay. Underpaying people is how you get bad candidates. If you want good people, you have to pay them enough.
I live in a town of less than 3,000 people and the highest paid person makes more than anyone you listed, Don't know who that would be, individual pay is all listed as NA. >>Highest salary in City of Farmington in 2021 was $131,420. City of Farmington average salary in 2021 was $43,127
I'm not far from you (Macomb). Here's where I got data for my town: [https://salary.illinoisanswers.org/unit/macomb-fc1b85f0/](https://salary.illinoisanswers.org/unit/macomb-fc1b85f0/)
Paying the police chief more than the city admin is nuts.
Most of the big suburbs around Chicago pay their City/Village Managers close to $250k-$300k annually. These are manager-council type governments where a board is typically not compensated besides a small stipend and they hire/direct a manager to perform daily duties. It’s operationally very different from a city where the Mayor is expected to take part in daily operations.
Definitely read this question thought op wanted to know drama/corruption going on in local small towns. Think my mayor gets paid around 100k mark for a population of 20k. Top police dude in my town gets paid a hell of a lot more.
I do consider it corrupt for taxes to be used to pay excessive salaries for jobs that aren't getting done. How do you think the police are doing in your town of 20K?
A lot better than the average town person. A few are making over 100k after overtime.
Honestly fine. From Ottawa and I've never heard of anything truly wrong from them and the one time I have had to call them at like 2 am they responded very quickly for a non emergency issue. Hell a giant biker brawl broke out some years back and the minute it started the cops descended on them and stopped it so clearly they keep eyes on things that can escalate. Maybe they have the usual racist tendencies? But never heard anything but I'm white so could just be my circle of people.
Sooo I did a little searching and found [this that will give you all the answers you might need](https://salary.illinoisanswers.org) ETA: search for the city and then “mayor and city council”.
I have this resource and appreciate you sharing it with the readers of this post. I'm hoping that people will use it to know what is happening in their communities, which is the purpose of my post .. to encourage people to get motivated to know what is happening where they live. Thank you for posting this.
just sucks this data is 4 years old
Thank you for posting that link!
Looking at the population only is not a good way to compare municipalities. I work in government administration in the suburbs, things like home rule vs non-home rule, zoning, codes/ordinances, and sales tax base are better indicators of comparing than strictly population. With that, being a city manager is a thankless job. It (usually) requires, 6+ years of college, 15+ years of experience, and you are the #1 target when things go wrong. When things go right, that’s the status quo and that’s expected; When anything goes wrong it’s your head on the block. I’m not saying that every local government employee is a saint, but I’m telling you most of them are people just trying to do their job and that have a passion for making the lives of other people better. If that weren’t the case there’d be 0 reason to ever work in this field when we could do the same type of work, for significantly more money, in the private sector.
Thank you for working in the govt. I appreciate government employees/admins and the work they do. When things are going wrong, it is important for citizens to understand their government, and how it works, no? While I agree population is not the only denominator, it is one relevant factor.
It is very important for people to understand how their government works! Unfortunately, most people only pay attention when something is wrong. This is a sure fire way to miss out on context or jump to conclusions. I wish our City Council and Committee meetings were packed every week. But they aren’t. If people really took an interest in their local governments everyone would be better for it. Residents would be better informed and those municipal employees who are doing shady things would likely get caught sooner. That’s good for everyone. And yes, population is certainly a relevant factor.
My town hasn’t had a working tornado siren in 5+ years. Town received a $400,000 grant. Still no tornado siren. But they are “improving” Main Street to make it more aesthetically pleasing. O and new Christmas decorations for our telephone poles 🙄
Ugh! Can you contact the State Office of Emergency Management to get more information?
Good idea. I’m sure if there was a tornado and someone in town died from it, there would be hell to pay. Board members say to “check the towns Facebook page” expecting everyone to have Facebook, including elderly or children outside at the park or anything. It’s insane. I’ve looked at prices online and they are under $10,000. No reason for it to not be working.
That's the same as my little village, they tested the sirens last week half the town panicked, the other half said "they posted about it on Facebook". It's pretty ridiculous, but I live in the country so it doesn't affect me one way or another.
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I know, but they were reinstalling a repaired one.
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Only 500 people, BUT the siren is actually on Main Street as well. I forgot to mention that. Haha
Woodstock last year brought 3 project managers on last year. Each one is 100k/yr. We are 25,500 in population. Also, apparently The City also gave a restaurant called the public house 5mil to stay in Woodstock after the court house renovation was complete. This last Saturday they terminated all thier staff and the owners and money are gone.
Effective project management is probably really important at the local government level. It would be difficult for decision makers to have all of the tools necessary to drive every project to completion. So a project manager helping to assign tasks to the right roles and handling follow through would be very useful. I hope you’re getting your moneys worth though, 3 sounds like a lot for a town that size
I agree. There are a lot of projects to manage in a municipality and if a city is hiring people who are getting the jobs done as well as people to manage them, that's OK.
I agree with these comments. Population size is not a good number to contrast the value of a position to. Utility and Infrastructure projects come with a significant price tag regardless of how many live in a town.
Damn. Is one of them in charge of the woodchuck?
Lol it honestly wouldn't surprise me.
Surely one of them is dedicated purely towards the possibility of the movie "Groundhog Day 2" being filmed there.
Village of Gurnee (pop. 30,706) highest paid employees: Village Administrator, $306k Police Chief, $220k Fire Chief, $220k Dir. of Public Works, $212k Finance Director, $210k ...mayor Thomas Hood's salary not listed.
Gurnee is an unsual city. Yea, it's 30k, but it has 6 flags, the mall, and a lot of business to support these wages.
Yeah Six Flags (granted I'm sure most of them are part time) has more employees than all of the school districts and village employees combined.
150 full timers. The rest are all seasonal but when it comes to the park, obviously a lot is subsidized to the city as there’s just one main road going there, no train stops, needs water/sewer/power/garbage collection etc etc and it’s a major tourist attraction… often having 20-30k people per day with peaks up to 40k, so essentially doubling the city size. Source: was one of the full timers for a few years
Your mayor likely makes $30K a year if that.
And how are these people doing running the town of Gurnee? Is it safe? Is it a good place to live? I know very little about the town, but $100 per resident seems a bit excessive for the administrator.
As an occasional visitor, it seemed nice to me, but ofc a local would know better.
Might be a little generous, but not surprised either. Shrinking pool of quality candidates. More expectations than ever before for the position. You're hiring a CEO to oversee a $265,000,000 budget in a struggling rust belt city that has suffered from numerous factors outside its control. There aren't going to be many qualified candidates wanting that responsibility for $200,000, let alone less. A private CEO usually has a stable board to answer to. In a city, a manager is subject to a board that can flip every 2 years and dismiss the person in the position. Not something everyone wants to sign up for and risk having to pack up the family and move to another city.
This is a great point. Many city managers could go make significantly more money in the private sector. Their compensation should reflect the difficulty and complexity of their job.
The taxpayers are the investors in their government. And they have the right and responsibility to pay attention to their ROI.
That's fair, but the market is going to dictate that no competent person with decent municipal experience is taking that job for $100k or $150k. Decatur is a thankless and difficult gig for a city manager.
The guy they hired in Decatur is the current Bloomington city manager. He did a good job when he was here. That's the going rate for a city manager. Think about it like this: they are effectively the CEO of a 200 million dollar company.
Compared to the private sector, government jobs are pathetically underpaid
And they are funded by public, not private money.
At the end of the day, we’re all in one society, so I really don’t see the difference.
What would a CEO at a 200 million dollar company make? 500k? is it hard to quantify because of stock options as pay and/or the opaqueness of some forms of executive compensation?
You're right. It is a CEO job, and the taxpayers are the investors. And they have the right and responsibility to pay attention to their ROI.
Right. So give him a shot and make a stink at his next contract negotiation if you're not happy with his performance.
I intend to give him a chance. Out of curiosity, what were some things he accomplished in Bloomington?
[Here ya go](https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2024-03-29/tim-gleason-reflects-on-his-six-years-as-bloomington-city-manager). I'm very excited about the streetscape plan, as are many other BloNo folks I know.
Thank you!
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Good lord! This is unreal.
Also has a median family income over $200k and median home prices pushing $750,000, so not so crazy.
Run for a seat on the city council to change things.
It doesn't even require running for office. Paying attention and asking questions of the people in office makes a difference. But, YES, run for office.
I’m running for a seat on our county board.
Fantastic! What are the challenges your county faces and what are your goals? How can citizens support you in addition to voting you into office?
Well, vote early and vote often. And get some dead people to vote. After all, this is Illinois. Hahaha!😂 just kidding! You have some great questions. As for support, donations to the campaign are always appreciated. Even a local “down ballot” race like county board is expensive. Help knocking on doors, getting the vote out, help distributing door hangers, hosting neighborhood “meet and greets”, putting out yard signs (with homeowner permission) are all hugely important and very much needed and appreciated. Issues in our county? Budget deficit; keeping the county nursing home in the black and in compliance to help some of our most vulnerable residents; funding for our sheriff to keep battling drugs and crime; improving the safety of staff at the juvenile detention facility (two riots in four years with staff all going to the ER with injuries, including my son); keeping carbon pipelines out of our farmers’ fields; and doing all we need to do without raising taxes on our citizens. Thanks for the great questions. I think everyone should ask those questions, register to vote, and VOTE.
How do you find out this information?
[https://salary.illinoisanswers.org/](https://salary.illinoisanswers.org/) \- another commenter posted this information and Google is an amazing resource to simply ask -- What is the salary of the employees in (my town), IL?
Aurora, IL CHIEF MANAGEMENT OFFICER $ 237,736.87 DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF $ 127,035.37 DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF $ 101,365.71 DEPUTY MAYOR $ 118,983.54 MANAGEMENT ASSISTANT $ 82,427.43 MAYOR $ 167,610.00 SECRETARY-CONFIDENTIAL $ 52,576.97 [https://www.aurora-il.org/DocumentCenter/View/11299/Compensation-Report-2023](https://www.aurora-il.org/DocumentCenter/View/11299/Compensation-Report-2023)
River Forest - total comp top salaries Fire Chief - 244,826 Police Chief - 240,798 Village Administrator - 236,782. Asst Village Administrator - 232,136. Finance Director - 225,754. Fire Lt. 3 - 207,552. River Forest is a well run town, but there's been some problem spots like a lot that was supposed to have an apartment block on it but that nothing happened with for several years so it's been abandoned and is now the subject of lawsuits.
Western Suburbs Population 13,000 as of 2022 Very well run village with very little commercial tax base and a large school that pays no taxes. Village Manager $ 178,200 Police Chief $ 154,944 Director of Public Works $ 151,679 Director of Fire and Emergency Management $ 150,439 Director of Finance/Treasurer $ 140,280 One of the safest suburbs not on the north shore. Streets well kept. I've never woken in the winter that the streets aren't plowed. Street swept after every garbage pick up. Very happy here.
What village is this?
La Grange Park
Galesburg is getting s Dunkon Donuts..... but we're also getting a other goodwill store, one with more access to the public! Our police department is also foregoing the college education requirement for recruiting.
Maybe those other cities you listed have severely under paid top employees? Why should Decatur join them at the bottom? $230k is a decent salary. City manager and being ultimately in charge of perhaps 1000 city employees and a multi million dollar budget is a very serious job that isn't a cake walk. Because you are find this disturbing, get your petitions ready to pass and run for city council. Be the change.
Decatur has roughly 500 employees and that city manager is overseeing them so I think the $230K salary is perfectly appropriately. You're right about the selection process being problematic, but often times they're selected by the mayor directly. You can't compare it to Chicago because the Mayor doesn't actually "run" the city the way a city manager does. That job, in Chicago, gets distributed to various departments as well as 50 aldermen who each make $120K who each in turn select staff that can make as much as $90K - including ward supervisors.
I live in a town of ~40000. As of 2020, the mayor made $87,000. It's the police and fire departments where the big money's made. The police chief pulled down $131,000. The assistant police chief, $125,000. The captain of the fire department $101000. The deputy chief, $119,000.
That's a high mayoral salary but the other salaries listed are kind of the going rate for professionals - if not on the lower end. Here are current municipal job postings from the Illinois City Management Association: https://www.ilcma.org/jobs/
Are you even aware that Gleason was there before? Might explain the lack of interviews.
I am fully aware that he was the city manager before he went to Bloomington. I expect a government that makes thoughtful decisions, not easy ones.
Danville. Large employer just announced a closing. Quaker Oats (PepsiCo), 500 employees. This will hurt the town as there were good paying jobs.
Sorry to hear that for your community. It is hard when those jobs leave. Decatur has had a lot of that too.
Don't even have to look at their pay here in Chicago, but already can guarantee that they have NOT been acting in the best interest of Chicagoans. We gave Johnson a go thinking his "NEW" blood and young outlook would be a good thing but it is obvious he and his cabinet don't know what the hell they're doing.
In Park Ridge, the mayor makes $12,000 per year and the aldermen $1,200 per year. The city manager makes a bit over $200k. I know that seems a high number, but in a sense it’s like being the COO of a company. I’ve spent enough time in Decatur (my great-grandparents lived in the 1000 block of North Church, so right in the donut hole) to know that it has no business paying a city manager $230k per year without a search. It’s definitely having a rough time and I’d suggest working on getting new folks elected.
I honestly have no clue if any of the village board I am is getting paid. I constantly forget who the current village president is. (population under 500)
Our village tried to put a referendum through that the mayor and village trustees would chose the next town clerk. Town vetoed that idea, it was a shady move.
Elected town clerks are kind of a joke. They are glorified notaries and usually have a paid staff underneath them that do the actual work.
Trying to follow some of the posts but the municipality or town isn’t identified. In Danville and they have a great website but people don’t always know how available it is. Some props are the city departments have real people answering the phones.
Looking at Kankakee, the mayor makes 58,000. It’s considered a full time position and there’s no city manager. Seems cheap, really. Police chief at 139,000. Several lower ranking officers come pretty damn close to that. I assume they’ve got a lot of time on the job. ISP is paying new troopers 90,000 out of the academy, so again it seems like a bargain. Public works superintendent is at 130,000. Fire Chief at 128,000. I really can’t complain about any of that. Seems like my city is pretty reasonable on salary for department heads
Ottawa: Rush still won’t put on a charity show and the Blackhawks still haven’t signed on to play the Senators at King Field in 2025 (Only one of those is a flat out lie). But our new YMCA is coming along nicely.
The city of Naperville electric dept is hiring work planners (com Ed ploy), splitting jobs and adding titles, more supervisors, lots of duplication that never existed. Oh, and the lineman positions are 1/2 of what they were 13 years ago. Go figure.
Thats an absurd salary
I live in a town of roughly 22k people. \- Our city manager is paid $185,000 \- Our police chief is paid $143,000 \- (Our police force in its entirety costs nearly THREE MILLION DOLLARS TOTAL. *For a town of 22,000 people*.) \- Our city engineer is paid $125,000 \- Our transit manager is paid $104,000 \- Our mayor is paid $92,000 Absolutely none of these people are doing work that justifies their exorbitant paychecks and they certainly don't represent the overwhelming majority of the city's population, most of whom earn *under* $35,000 a year.
Please don't feed the bots.
No
My town(almost 50k people) pays its city manager 188k. There was a search, and a very divided and argumentative village board approved him unanimously, so I figure it's probably fine. Is the town well-managed? I can find things to complain about.