The salaries for Forest Park’s village staff members will rise by 4% this year.
The move comes as the council aims to pay its employees fairly amid the village’s budget deficit.
At an Oct. 15 meeting, council members unanimously passed the village’s annual salary ordinance that finalizes the amount that village employees will be paid during the 2025 fiscal year, which began May 1.
While there have been years, like during the COVID-19 pandemic, when staff received no salary increases, this was not one of them, said Village Administrator Rachell Entler. Everyone covered by the ordinance got at least a 4% salary increase, she said.
Last year, those who made under $100,000 got a 4% raise, while those who made over that amount received a 2% raise, Entler said.
Entler made recommendations to the village council on how much to increase wages this year after she compared what those positions earn in similar municipalities.
“We have a couple people who aren’t even in range,” Entler said. Specifically, Finance Director Letitia Olmsted, Director of Public Works Sal Stella, and Public Health and Safety Director Steve Glinke are all underpaid compared to comparable positions in other towns, she said.
Commissioner of Accounts and Finance Maria Maxham included Entler in that list at the village council meeting.
“Even though we are giving our village administrator a bump, it’s still not up to what people in the surrounding areas are making,” Maxham said. “I think our village administrator is doing a fabulous job.”
Also in the salary ordinance, five police and two fire non-union employees got wage compression adjustments. Wage compression, Entler said, happens when non-union employees get pay increases less than the union members they supervise.
The village’s union employees get stipends for certain specialties, like field training or a Breath Alcohol Technician certification. While police sergeants get these benefits, the next highest rank of lieutenant does not. And lieutenants at the Forest Park Police Department weren’t making much more than top sergeants.
“There was a hesitancy to look for promotions and take leadership positions because of the loss of income, essentially,” Entler said. “They were having to take on more responsibility and the increase in pay wasn’t there.”
In the salary ordinance, Entler included a plan to have a $10,000 difference between each of the following ranks: police chief, deputy chief, lieutenant and sergeant. She will introduce it over three years, rather than all at once, to make it easier on the village’s budget.
“Last year I didn’t know about this as an issue,” Maxham said at the last village council meeting. “We kind of let the ball drop on this and didn’t make the changes that we should have made.”
At a September village council meeting, Maxham complained about communication among commissioners. She asked them to come prepared to discuss and ask questions about the upcoming salary ordinance.
“I want to make sure that we are all prepared to come to the meeting, ideally ready to vote on it, not to just create more questions for our staff to have to answer,” Maxham told the Review.
Entler said commissioners were engaged and asked good questions at the closed salary ordinance meeting.
The ordinance passed with little discussion, outside a comment from Maxham, who thanked Entler for informing the village council about wage compression at the meeting and ahead of the meeting with a detailed memo.
“I was able to, I think, appropriately put the village in a position where we weren’t going to take a huge [financial] hit on salaries,” Entler told the Review. “But we were still going to be able to be competitive in our fields.”
Below are the salary ranges for some of the highest paying positions in the village.
Officials
- Mayor: $30,000 per year (plus $10,000 for his position as commissioner)
- Commissioners: $10,000 per year
- Village Prosecutor: $20,000 – $55,000
Mayor’s Office
- Village Administrator: $85,000 – $138,000
- Executive Secretary to Mayor: $40,000 – $70,000
Clerk’s Office
- Village Clerk: $50,000 – $112,000
- Finance Director/Comptroller: $65,000 – $130,000
Police Department
- Chief of Police: $80,000 – $ $155,000
- Deputy Chief: $80,000 – $145,000
- Lieutenant: $80,000 – $137,000
- Sergeants and patrolmen are paid per collective bargaining agreements
Fire Department
- Fire Chief: $80,000 – $155,000
- Captain/Deputy Chief: $80,000 – $145,000
- Lieutenants and firefighters are paid per collective bargaining agreements
Howard Mohr Community Center
- Community Center Director: $50,000 – $107,000
- Assistant Community Center Director: $45,000 – $71,000
- Full-time Clubhouse Director: $30,000 – $54,000
Other employees
- Director of Public Health & Safety: $70,000 – $105,000
- Director of Public Works: $75,000 – $125,000
Correction, Oct. 22, 2024, 11:45 a.m.: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated who received salary increases. Staff did. Elected officials did not. The story has been corrected. We apologize for the error.