As another election season draws near, one that’s sure to focus in part on the salaries of the village’s administrative staff, Brookfield’s village trustees exercised a vote of confidence in Village Manager Riccardo Ginex on Monday by handing him a 7 percent raise.
Retroactive to Ginex’s anniversary date with the village, Sept. 6, he is contracted to be paid $135,154 over the next 12 months.
“We’ve all been around long enough to know how things were done in the past,” said Village President Michael Garvey prior to the board’s unanimous vote to raise Ginex’s salary roughly $10,000 over his 2007-08 pay.
“I think a lot of times we take for granted how long we’ve come.”
Garvey ticked off a list of accomplishments that Ginex has presided over since being hired in 2005, when Garvey’s PEP Party regained control of the village board after four years.
Since being hired, Ginex has replaced every department head in the village, restructured the Building and Planning Department and has added resources to the Recreation Department and to the village manager’s office.
Earlier this month, the village capped off a months’ long effort to establish a tax increment financing district along Ogden Avenue to promote its economic redevelopment. Last weekend, village officials celebrated the opening of a newly developed portion of Jaycee/Ehlert Park, made possible in part by a federal grant obtained since Ginex’s hire.
“I don’t think anyone could ever imagine these things happening under the earlier process,” Garvey said. “This is a show of confidence more than anything else in the manager.”
This is the third time the village board has shown such confidence in Ginex. Hired at a base salary of $107,000, Ginex has seen his salary go up 26 percent since that time in roughly $10,000 annual increments.
During the 2007 village elections, Garvey’s political opponents made Ginex’s salary an important part of their campaign to win back power on the village board. While that strategy didn’t bear any fruit-PEP swept every contested seat-it appears that salaries will again be an issue.
Bill Russ, whom Garvey unseated as village president in 2005 and who ran unsuccessfully for trustee in 2007, appeared at the village board meeting Monday to ask whether Ginex was receiving another raise and asked the board to consider giving him just a seven-month contract.
In seven months, Brookfield voters will be heading to the polls to elect a president, three trustees and a clerk.
Village Attorney Richard Ramello stated that there was no reason to limit the term of Ginex’s contract, since the manager works at the pleasure of the village board.
“I think this reflects the wonderful job he’s done for us,” said Trustee Cathy Colgrass Edwards. “Brookfield has moved forward in a direction it’s never done before.”