Politics & Government
Where Is Geneva Hiding Its Salary Reports?
A search reveals that the salary numbers required by state law are either unpublished or tough to find on taxing-body websites.
The Daily Herald has an excellent article on the front page of its July 3 edition by Suburban Tax Watchdog Jake Griffin, headlined, "Where is your town hiding its salary report?"
Salaries of employees making more than $75,000 are required by state law to be published on each taxing bodies' website, starting this year. But after more than six months, some are ignoring the law and others are making the information hard to find, Griffin reports.
In Geneva, that appears to be true.
As an experiment, I tried going on the websites of four local taxing bodies: the city of Geneva, School District 304, Geneva Library and Geneva Park District, just to see how easy the search might be. As a caveat, I'll be the first to admit that I'm no expert at searching websites—and there may be folks out there who can find this information more quickly and easily.
It did take about an hour to find all four references. On the good news side, three of the four taxing bodies published some salary numbers, and I was able to find a reference to the law on all four sites. On the bad news side, I was only able to find old administrative and teacher compensation numbers on the School District website, and nothing is posted on the library website.
How to Find the Salary Numbers
The city of Geneva's website search takes you to a Google search. When you search for the word "compensation," the second item from the top is the PDF: Total Compensation over $75,000 pursuant to 5 ... - City of Geneva
Interestingly, School District 304 seems to have chosen to post only the data required by the state, "IMRF Employees Salary > $75K," which I found in the left-hand column of the "District Information" page. Administrative salaries and teacher salaries are not on the report, but I was able to find the School District 304 salary numbers for 2011-12 in the same column.
Obviously, it's a year behind, but salary numbers are listed. If there's a 2012-13 version, I couldn't find it within 15 minutes.
School Board Vice President Kelly Nowak points out that there are two separate state mandates, one that requires reporting the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund salaries over $75,000, and another requiring publication of administrative and teacher salaries and benefits.
The Park District website doesn't have a search function. To find the salaries, you go from the homepage to "Boards" to "Public Notices" to a PDF titled GPD Compensation Disclosure as of May 1, 2013. The Park District has only four employees who earn more than $75,000, according to the report.
The Library District website says the list of employees with salaries over $75,000 "is available in the Administration Office, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m." I found the note with a search for the word "compensation."
As Griffin points out, the state law is one of those unfunded mandates that just wasn't very high on the "to do" list for a lot of local units of government. Maybe after his report, it will be a little higher priority.
Here's a summary of my July 3 search, along with links to the salary information.
CITY OF GENEVA
- website: http://www.geneva.il.us/
- Salaries reference on home page? No.
- Found in search of the word "salaries"? No
- Found in search of the word "compensation"? Yes!
- Find the list here
- Highest salary: City Administrator $137,791.26
SCHOOL DISTRICT 304
- website: https://www.geneva304.org/
- Salaries reference on home page? No.
- Found in search of the word "salaries"? No
- Found in search of the word "compensation"? No
- Find the IMRF list here and the 2011-12 salaries list here.
- Highest salary on 2011-12 list: School District Superintendent $219,031.25
- Highest salary on IMRF list: Director of Facility Operations $96,000.00
GENEVA PARK DISTRICT
- website: http://www.genevaparks.org/index.php
- Salaries reference on home page? No.
- Found in search of the word "salaries"? No search option available on website
- Found in search of the word "compensation"? No search option available on website
- Find the list here
- Highest salary: Executive Director $120,000
GENEVA LIBRARY DISTRICT
- website: http://gpld.org/
- Salaries reference on home page? No.
- Found in search of the word "salaries"? No
- Found in search of the word "compensation"? Yes, the search brings up a note that says to come to the library for the information
- Find the note here
- Highest salary: Not available online
