Oak Park’s current village board members voted Tuesday to give raises to future seat holders, including the president, trustees and clerk.
On Oct. 22, the village board discussed new salaries for these elected positions which, now approved, will not go into effect immediately. The trustees, president and clerk who are elected, or reelected, in April 2025 will be the first to earn the new salary. Those still on the board for two more years would not see a new salary until the next election in April 2027.
Trustees Cory Wesley and Brian Straw, who brought the motion forward, were supportive of significant increases that could allow for more diverse candidates to run and more competitive elections.
“We are the elected representatives of the people,” Wesley said Tuesday. “The power for government and government itself still continues to rest with the people, not us … The only way that the people can actually check our power or hold us accountable is if our elections are competitive.”
The raise for each position was voted on separately.
Increasing the next village president’s salary to $40,000 from $25,200 was approved 6-1. Raising future trustee salaries to $23,000 from $15,000 was approved 4-1, with trustees Lucia Robinson and Chibuike Enyia, who are running for reelection in 2025, abstaining. And raising the next elected clerk’s salary to $107,000 from $76,625 was approved 6-1.
Trustee Ravi Parakkat, who is running for village president in 2025, voted against each raise. He said Oak Park is already at the higher end of compensation for village boards compared to nearby communities. And that the village president and trustee roles are part-time due to the village manager form of government.
“We are not here to incentivize career politicians,” he said. “These are short-term, part-time, elected positions with term limits, and the compensation should reflect that.”
Village President Vicki Scaman said the positions do not have term limits. While the positions are elected to four-year terms, individuals could run as many times as they like. Past village clerks in particular, she said, have made the job into a career, one even serving 20 years.
Parakkat argued the board should address barriers to serve by offering services like childcare reimbursement and running meetings more efficiently rather than implementing raises. He also said that spending more time working in these positions doesn’t always lead to better outcomes and it’s unfair to ask taxpayers to pay more.
Other trustees disagreed.
Straw said the salary adjustments are intended to align with community expectations and equity considerations. A call for service drives residents to run, but it isn’t enough. Candidates often need to have a level of privilege, he said, to be financially able to serve and able to volunteer enough time.
In neighboring communities, local boards have much shorter meetings, Straw pointed out. But in Oak Park, residents and elected officials want to be leaders and “push the envelope.”
“It takes a lot of time for everyone at this table to be informed and aware of cutting-edge policy,” he said. “It is a part-time job, but it is a part-time job that requires a significant investment of time.”
For the clerk, however, trustees decided they still need to determine the best way to structure raises. The board wasn’t sure whether those raises should be set at a specific percentage increase annually or should be evaluated and determined on a regular basis. Trustees mostly agreed they’d like the raises to help offset cost of living increases.
They’ll decide that aspect of the clerk’s salary on Nov. 4.
