When the Brookfield village board decided Monday to table action on amending the employment contract for Village Manager Riccardo Ginex, it was, according to Village President Michael Garvey, in response to Ginex’s refusal of any raise if, in fact, any had been offered.
The issue was a moot point, so the board decided not to move forward with the symbolic gesture of offering a raise and letting Ginex decline it. There is no doubt that the decision by Ginex to forego a raise at this time is a sensible one from a number of points of view.
For starters, the village manager is presiding over a village in which cash is very tight. Earlier this year he froze spending on several budgeted items, ordered non-union workers to take unpaid vacation days, tried to negotiate (unsuccessfully) a similar furlough program with union employees and laid off nine employees.
In that kind of climate, it would have seemed heartless at the very least, had the board decided a raise for Ginex was OK with them and he accepted.
The thing is the board didn’t make the gesture. And we find that telling.
Truth is, the last 12 months have not been very smooth at Brookfield village hall. And Ginex has been at the helm. Even before the revelation last fall that management had made a mistake in levying taxes for the public library – and costing the village nearly $700,000 out of its operating fund – there were questions about where the village stood financially.
Answers were hard to come by and there wasn’t anyone in-house until January who really had the expertise to unravel it all. Of course, Ginex had hired a finance director in 2008, which might have helped, but she disappeared two months after she was hired. Why? We still don’t know.
Then later in 2008 the library levy mistake was revealed. Garvey apologized for the mistake but forgave Ginex, saying it was time to move forward. But despite protests to the contrary, it was a large mistake, especially given the financial condition of the village two months later.
So while we accept the notion and applaud Ginex for declining to take a pay hike as recognition of Brookfield’s current reality, we also feel that if push came to shove, he wouldn’t and shouldn’t have been offered one by the board anyway.
The next six months will be a true test of his leadership, with several union contracts under negotiation and another bare bones budget in the works. That’s where Ginex can prove the confidence shown him by Garvey and the board.
And maybe next year, the board might even make its expression of confidence a tangible one.