Naperville Township trustees did something unusual Tuesday night. They voted to drastically cut salaries for elected officials. The town supervisor's pay, for example, is being slashed in half to $45,000 from $89,000. The town clerk's salary is being cut to $32,000 from $40,000.
These cuts bring Naperville in line with the compensation afforded other township officials in DuPage County.
However, the cuts did not come without a fight. One trustee, Fred Spitzzeri, verbally attacked another, Gary Vician. Spitzzeri called Vician a hypocrite, since Vician voted for pay raises four years ago. Vician said the plan four years ago was to justify the raises because staff cuts were planned, but those savings were never fully realized, Paige Winfiled reports in The Sun.
What do you make of all this? Does the township board deserve praise for acting responsibly and reducing salaries? Or should it be qualified praise, since the board was correcting irresponsible past actions that inflated salaries in the first place? Or should the board be outright criticized for not doing enough to cut costs?
