The Skokie Village Board went through a series of convoluted motions at its Sept. 16 meeting as it considered whether or not to approve raises tied to inflation for the incoming mayor, clerk and trustees after the 2025 Board elections. The board ultimately decided to reject the raises.
Trustee Alison Pure Slovin first proposed the raises at the previous board meeting two weeks ago, citing that the mayor and clerk had not received a raise since 2016. A last-ditch effort led by Trustee James Johnson had the board reject the raises with unanimous support from the village board.
The board read through a routine ordinance that would establish the pay for the next term’s mayor, clerk and trustees at a board meeting on Sept. 3. Then, Pure Slovin proposed a 3% raise tied to inflation for the mayor and clerk, but did not propose the same for trustees, and said she was not comfortable proposing a raise for trustees.
In Skokie, the mayor receives an annual base salary of $35,000, the clerk receives an annual base salary of $87,000 and trustees receive a stipend of $9,500 annually, according to the village’s Communications and Community Engagement Director Patrick Deignan.
Pure Slovin’s proposal was seconded by Trustee Keith Robinson at the Sept. 3 board meeting, but a formal vote was not taken. Corporation Counsel Michael Lorge suggested not taking a formal vote at that time and said “as in anything we like to have two weeks in between voting.”
“If that’s the ordinance (the original ordinance (which did not include raises) that you want to bring back (at the next board meeting), I think that sort of confuses things, but we could do that as well,” Lorge said.
At the Sept. 16 meeting, as Mayor George Van Dusen was ready to call the roll to vote on the raises, Johnson interrupted Van Dusen to propose that the board go back to the original ordinance. Johnson’s proposal initially confused some on the board, but Lorge and Van Dusen were able to explain the situation to them.
The board then unanimously voted to re-engage its first ordinance, with no raises, and then unanimously voted in favor of it, effectively rejecting the raises.
Ahead of the vote, Johnson cited from the city of Evanston’s website figures on how members of the city council are compensated. In Evanston, the mayor receives a salary of $25,317, each alderman receives a salary of $15,990 and the city clerk receives a salary of $64,120.
Pure Slovin also backtracked on her original stance. “Based on what I see I don’t support a raise in the compensation of the mayor, the village clerk or the board of trustees because I believe that our compensation is above average of what other municipalities and villages are doing surrounding us, so I think we should continue with what we’ve already established.”
