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1. spatny
   Member

   And we eliminate the seasonal employees for mowing... How much does this cost/save?

   Village of Riverside
   2008 Personnel Budget

   The 2008 personnel budget of $5,406,471 is 0.1% lower than the 2007 personnel
   budget of $5,414,364, including professional development. Professional
   development in 2007 was budgeted at $106,305 and is budgeted at $87,690 in
   2007, a decrease of $18,615 or 17.5%. The slight decrease in the personnel budget
   is attributable to reductions in personnel as follows:
   —¢ Police (1 full time patrol officer, $85,000),
   —¢ Fire (reduction in Daytime Manning, from 5 to 3 days per week, $25,000),
   —¢ Public Works (eliminate seasonal employees for mowing, $25,000),
   —¢ Administration (reduce Secretary from full time to part time, 30 hours per
   week $22,400), and
   —¢ Finance (reduce summer intern by 50%, $2,100).
   —¢ The budget proposal also calls for elimination of Museum Director when the
   current contract expires. This individual is under contract, so is not reported
   in personnel. 2008 savings would be $14,000.

   In a typical year, personnel increases due to health insurance premiums increasing
   12%, consistent with industry increases, beginning July 1, 2008 and increases in the
   IMRF Pension. The employer contribution to the Police Pension will increased in
   2008 by $33,086, or 9.2%. We expect future employer contributions to increase
   significantly with the retirements of a fully vested Sergeant in 2007 and pending
   retirement of the Chief in 2008.

   Various cuts were made at the Village Manager level to reduce the amount spent on
   professional development. The budget calls for a 2.1% CPI wage adjustment and 2%
   salary pool for all non-union employees, in accordance with the adopted salary plan.
   The union contract for Police Officers and Sergeants along with the
   Telecommunicators bargaining unit is in negotiation. The Public Works employee's
   contract expires December 30, 2010. Personnel expenses, wages and benefits,
   again are the largest single expenditure within the budget.

   One new employee is included in the 2008 budget —“ a part time facility supervisor for
   the Recreation Center.

   Personnel expenditures comprise 63% of the total General Fund budget and 26% of
   the Water and Sewer Fund budget.

   Posted Tuesday Oct 16, 2007 17:54 #

2. Catherine
   Member

   What is the salary of the head of Parks and Recreation (i.e. Recreation)?

   Posted Tuesday Oct 16, 2007 22:08 #

3. spatny
   Member

   Around $90K, I believe.

   Posted Tuesday Oct 16, 2007 22:10 #

4. Catherine
   Member

   Saturday, 8:30. This is the proposed budget. It will be discussed then.

   Posted Wednesday Oct 17, 2007 10:30 #

5. spatny
   Member

   The amazing thing to me is the idea of cutting the Co-Op tree planting program. It only had 50-some trees this year, which probably cost $5K or so - total. We surely lost more than 100 trees in the public land, plus more on private property. The total going in is around 75. Sow e are falling further behind in reforesting the Village, and nw they want to cut out even this tiny program. Imagine what could have been done with the $100K plus we gave to Kane McKenna. Or the $350K we are going to have to pony up to buy, demolish and build the parking spaces on Burlington? The VC should have paid for that at $25K a space, not $5K. People bought here because they liked a peaceful, tranquil, forested setting with good schools and convenient location. Noe because we had great shopping in the CBD or lots of available condos. These people are destroying Riverside as we know it. All this finance stuff is just another way to shuffle the cards for PUD projects. I know one way to save $123K + more right now.

   Posted Thursday Oct 18, 2007 10:50 #

6. cherylb
   Member

   Even more disturbing than the Co-Op tree program cuts are the possible cuts in fire/police service. Surely there are other places we can cut costs, for example, it seems to me that there is way too much overhead for such a small village.
   Why a village manager AND president? How much do they make? Why so many consultants? Are our elected officials incapable of doing the job we hired them to do?

   I am not a budget professional, but I generally do not spend more than I make. It seems to me that we would have more $ coming in if we had a viable downtown area. The long time businesses are running out of town so fast, that it makes it difficult to believe in our little community.

   I have read many of the postings in this forum, and it seems that there are a number of problems that force the businesses to leave: bad landlords, high taxes, low services.

   I suppose that at this juncture, I have more questions than answers, which is why I am posting here. There must be some solution that can be arrived at through intelligent and respectful conversation.

   Posted Sunday Oct 21, 2007 20:56 #

7. spatny
   Member

   Cherylb - we are adequately staffed for fire and police, and have co-op agreements with the surrounding villages. Our Village Manager is overpaid for a Village of this size, but that is what the Board gives her. The President, the Board Trustees and the Commission Members are unpaid, and they donate a great deal of their time. But huge sums of money have been wasted on consultants and studies and all the rest of the parasites that have been brought in to peddle their wares.

   Riverside is a tiny, unique community surrounded by a sea of mediocrity. If we had businesses here who would they draw their customer base from? Berwyn? Brookfield? Lyons? North Riverside? Hardly. The things that make Riverside so desireable are it's tranquil beauty, its good schools, its unique character, its excellant rail transportation. Olmsteds plan gave wonderful, interesting streetscapes and a sense of mystery to the village. Before the advent of in-car navigation systems people from elsewhere avoided the village because they got lost. We should seriously question what we lose to gain a few tax dollars from sales tax revenues - and it is really just that - A FEW tax dollars from the CBD. I'd like a good restaurant or two, but I was in that business in a big way in San Francisco, and I know what is possible and hat is not when it comes to making the risk and labor financially rewarding. At the rents being asked for the Village Center or what will be asked for the Arcade, it will be difficult to have reasonable prices and enough volume.

   Development is not cheap. The Board essentially gave a $350,000 incentive and a variance that will allow several million dollars more in condo sales to the developer - for no apparent reason. In this market, the VC could become an albatross, but the taxpayers will still have to pay that extra $350,000 that the Board undercharged for the "in Lieu of parking fee that will now be required to purchase the home on Burlington, demolish it and develop a parking lot there, ebven with two less spaces than required. You can thank the Board and the Village Manager for that. They had to forfeit and return over $40,000 in building fees for Delaplaine Crossing. They gave a tax-abating incentive to the Arcade developer that will cause the Village to lose more than $450,000 in taxes we were getting over the next twelve years. This Board, and this Manager have stumbled with every development issue that has come before tham, and now they are crying that they need more money. Add up what they gave away, what they paid consultants, what they waste on bloated budgets like the Rec department, and you will see where your tax dollars have gone.

   Nobody ever moved to Riverside because it was full of downtown condos or had great shopping. The development that this Board and this Manager are hell-bent on brnging here will be a death knell to the Riverside we love, and should be protecting. We need to cashier this regime and bring in some people who understand what Riverside is, and what it should remain -

   Posted Sunday Oct 21, 2007 22:11 #

8. cherylb
   Member

   Interesting. Since the manager is so overpaid, and the board not paid, lets eliminate the manager position, and split her pay to the board/president. Although I am not sure about the president/ players on the board and their intentions.

   I agree that R'side is a unique and beautiful place. I work very hard to keep my home beautiful and so do my neighbors. I am glad that we have a great school system, although I have no children to use them - it is better than the alternative. However, I would like to spend more of my shopping dollars in my town, rather than River Forest or Oak Park. I would like to walk to local restaurants, as you stated. The small cafe that is downtown is lovely, and I frequent it often. But woman does not live by bagels alone.

   All I am saying is that there must be some way to solve this that makes most people happy. And uses our tax dollars wisely.

   Posted Monday Oct 22, 2007 06:07 #

9. Catherine
   Member

   Everyone would like to have more retail in the downtown. That could have been accomplished in part by giving grants and loans to lure business here. Instead, that money was blown on consultants to drive condo overdevelopment. The tax coffers are not beefed up by sales taxes, but by property taxes. TIF money goes to property owners, not to businesses.

   The town also has a small population and our main streets are not main to people in other towns, unlike, say, Madison Avenue in Forest Park. This makes business owners leery about their profit margins. There has long been a maxim too that Riverside people don't shop Riverside. I think if you give people what they want, they will come. A big holdup right now is that the owners of the Village Center development and of the historic Arcade building are asking absurdly high rents for their spaces, rents which put them on a par with prime locations in Chicago. Nobody is going to pay that for the kind of traffic we have here.

   The village president is not a paid position, nor is that of any of the trustees. The Landmark recently editorialized that the village needs to look at eliminating some of the high-paid positions at the top of the food chain here. I for one would like to see the Recreation Department go. Its head is overpaid for such frivolity, it runs a deficit, and I think the duties of a government are infrastructure, public safety and, in our case, stewardship of the national landmark.

   I also agree that cutting the tree program and grass cutting in a village which is a National Historic Landmark ONLY BECAUSE of the landscape architecture is idiotic indeed. Whatever. Like the CTA, they will suggest the cuts that are most alarming in order to get what they want. Like the CTA, we can be sure there is lard marbling the middle and upper ranks of the village departments.

   I do not agree that the benchmark is what makes most people happy when that breaches the private property rights of others, as the TIF district did when it put countless homes in it, targeted a couple of them for eminent domain, and put the rest at the risk of same. I too am already paying for schools, and a Recreation Department, that I have never used. I am not prepared to have my home stolen too, any more than anyone else in town would be.

   Posted Monday Oct 22, 2007 11:36 #

10. KimJ
    Member

    I was recently at the Oak Brook Park District Pool. I had not been back there in years and was surprised at how big, nice, and different it was from what the park district used to look like. I was also surprised when another mom looked at me sideways and said "I wonder why Riverside doesn't have one of these?" My thoughtful response was short. "The Mall."

    It is surprising how many smart people are in this village that cannot accept the notion that this is a special little town, and that because of its very uniqueness, will never be Hinsdale, LaGrange, Oak Park, or Oak Brook. If people prefer the amenities of other villages, why did they choose to settle here? What did they like about Riverside to come in the first place?

    Posted Monday Oct 22, 2007 14:12 #

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