Politics & Government
A Township Board Member Asks: Do We Really Need Townships?
In particular, can the multimillion-dollar budgets for township road maintenance be justified, Trustee Karl Karantonis asks.
When it comes to township highway upkeep, at least one local trustee has a lot of reservations.
Wheatland Township Trustee Karl Karantonis wonders if, in urban realms like our Chicago hinterlands, township governments and services might be going the way of the mobile bag phone and the hi-fi stereo system.
In Wheatland Township, taxpayers fork over $64,000 a year in salary to Highway Commissioner Dayton Jarnagin, plus pay for a crew of about a half dozen, to maintain 64 miles of roads. The Naperville Township Highway Department pays its elected highway commissioner $94,000 a year to look after just 12 miles of road.
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is responsible for 50 miles of road, at a price tag of about $1.9 million for 2011. (A call from Plainfield Patch inquiring about the commissioner’s salary was not returned.)
“The city of Naperville has to lift its (snow) plows on unincorporated roads to get to their next roads,” he says.
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Which begs the question, Karantonis says: Does the price tag equal the work that's being done?
With the salaries and pensions of public employees becoming a focal point for state budget shortfalls, the township’s role in largely city landscapes may be fading to black, Karantonis says. Township highway supervisors wield multimillion-dollar budgets and, in Illinois, they are the rare elected official who reports to no one but the voters.
“There is a lot of room for reform here,” he said. “We should consolidate with municipalities to do what needs done.”