Politics & Government
Where Is Batavia Hiding Its Salary Reports?
A search reveals that the salary numbers required by state law are either unpublished or tough to find on Batavia taxing-body websites.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?"
Total compensation 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 Batavia, that appears to be true.
As an experiment, I tried going on the websites of four local taxing bodies: the city of Batavia, School District 101, Batavia Library and Batavia 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, two are extremely difficult to find and nothing is posted on the library website.
How to Find the Salary Numbers
The city of Batavia wins the award for easiest to find. From the homepage, type “salaries” in the search box, and it takes you straight to page with this link: 2013 Compensation Listing. Click the link, and it takes you to a Google search. Second item from the top is the compensation.
School District 101 gets high marks, too. A search of the word “Compensation” brings you to a page under “Departments” titled “Annual Salary Compensation Report.” PDFs are on the page, easy to find. The numbers are from the 2011-12 school year, so they have not been updated in the first half of 2013, but they're there.
Find out what's happening in Bataviawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The Park District wins the award for hardest to find—but just by a nose. You go from the homepage to “About Us” to “Staff,” scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and in small type, unadorned by art, you see: “OMA Compensation Disclosure.“ Definitely a needle in a haystack.
The Library District's disclosure is almost as tough to find and a dead end once you get there. Go to the homepage, then the “About the Library” tab and look at the very bottom of the left-hand rail, where you’ll see: Notice of “Total Compensation Package”.
Find out what's happening in Bataviawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Click on that and you’ll get a list of the names of employees with total compensation over $75,000, but not their salaries. For that you have to go to the library and ask.
George H. Scheetz, director of the Batavia Public Library District, underlines that the numbers reflect total compensation, which includes everything from vehicle allowances to the value of sick days and vacation days granted.
That raises a couple interesting side notes, Scheetz points out. Employees on the list of "over $75,000" compensation package could have salaries below that mark, so the threshold can be misleading if readers don't understand that distinction. Also, Scheetz says, the guidelines for the posting aren't spelled out, which could result in some uneven reporting by the various taxing bodies.
"I frankly wonder whether agencies across the State of Illinois actually calculate the 'total compensation package' in the same way, as I am not aware of particular guidelines in this regard; that is, no such guidelines were available when I raised this question with the Library’s general counsel," he said.
Here's a summary of my July 3 search, along with links to the salary information.
CITY OF BATAVIA
- website: http://www.cityofbatavia.net/
- Salaries reference on home page? No
- Found in search of the word "salaries"? Yes!
- Found in search of the word "compensation"? Yes!
- Find the list here.
- Highest salary: City Administrator $158,285.00
SCHOOL DISTRICT 101
- website: http://www.bps101.net/
- 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: School District Superintendent $222,496
BATAVIA PARK DISTRICT
- website: http://www.bataviaparks.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 list here.
- Highest salary: Allison Niemela $154,961.76 (listed by name rather than position title)
BATAVIA LIBRARY DISTRICT
- Website: http://www.bataviapubliclibrary.org/
- Salaries reference on home page? No.
- Found in search of the word "salaries"? No search available on website
- Found in search of the word "compensation"? No search available on website; names of employees earning more than $75,000 to find each person's salary requires visiting the library.
- Find the note here.
- Highest salary: Not available online
