Story posted Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Parks Freeze All Salary Hikes
By DWIGHT ESAU Journal & Topics Reporter
None of the approximately 350 employees of the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District will get a pay increase this year.
This is the first significant action taken by the park board since Ray Ochromowicz, the new executive director, came on board last year. He succeeded Jim Lange last fall.
Last month, at its regular meeting, the park board took final action to ratify this arrangement with the district's 30 employees who are members of Local 74 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
This action may be unprecedented with the Park Ridge district, although he isn't sure because he's new, said Ochromowicz.
"The contract with the SEIU local was finalized just before I got here," he said. "When we began our 2010 budgeting, I suggested we forego pay increases across the board, for everyone. Since we have a contract with SEIU employees, we needed to ask if they would support it, and they did."
The action also is a response to the park district's modest budget-cutting for 2010, as recent revenue numbers have been modestly down in the last two years or two due to the bad economy.
Ochromowicz had an interesting perspective on another reason the district did this.
"The 1990s, when I spent a decade growing up in parks administration, were fabulous financially, we all got very used to annual pay raises," he said. "But we're always looking at the guy in front of us, and making sure we get a raise just like he does. But we don't often look behind us at the much larger group of people who are struggling in this economy, without raises or in some cases, jobs."
The park district has 52 full-time, year-round employees who are administrators, managers, and clerical employees. It has from 300-400 part-time, seasonal workers who perform maintenance, landscaping, lifeguard, recreational, and supervisory roles in the district's many recreational programs.
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