Friday, January 18, 2008

Show Me The Money!

Wow, folks. In case you missed it, the folks over at "24/7 North of Howard Watchers" reported on this largely overlooked gem in a post yesterday. Our Chicago aldermen now are pulling in a cool $104,101 a year, but that's not even the best part. They also approved automatic cost-of-living increases till the end of time. Not bad for a job you apparently never have to show up to work for. The "Howard Watchers" suggest congratulating your alderman if you see them. We could not agree more.

3 comments:

  1. Wonder what that comes to after the pension and other benefits are added in. Unbelievable!

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  2. Yet, they can't index the minimum to inflation.

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  3. What You Really Pay Your Alderman: $600,721 (before free office & benefits)

    1. $104,101 Alderman Salary (not
    including benefits package)
    2. $(Not Valued) One free office
    at City Hall
    3. $168,072 base salary for 3
    allotted staff (not including
    their benefits package)
    4. $26,520 for Contract staff of
    the alderman's choosing
    (can you say patronage?)
    5. $33,280 Office Expense Budget
    6. $(Varies) City Council Payments
    to each Committee Chair

    Plus: Aldermanic Menu Funds. Aldermen are given direct control over approximately 1/3 of the annual City capital budget to spend for their Ward. Some aldermen (Shiller, Tunney, Smith) failed to spend their annual funds.) Others gave 100% to special interest groups (Tunney. Some (Shiller) give the community no input into how these funds are spent.

    This system supposedly keeps peace between the Mayor and the alderman by giving each a piece of the budget pie to spend without interference by the others.

    Does your pocketbook hurt yet?

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