One interesting item on tonight’s City Council agenda (City Hall, 7:30 p.m.) is the Council’s decision on whether to vote to over-ride Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto of City Mgr. Jim Hock’s new employment contract.  And Hock is doing his best to lobby the Council for that over-ride. 

He is relying on a salary survey purportedly performed by the Glenview City Manager last March.  In typical bureaucrat fashion, he appears to be hoping that a gullible Council will use these “comparables” as justification for nuking Schmidt’s veto and upholding the contract the Council majority of Alds. Allegretti, Bach, Carey and Ryan recently gave him. 

When will our elected officials who have the final say on bureaucrat and other public employee compensation wake up and realize that whatever it is other public bodies are doing isn’t necessarily any better – and may be even dumber and more irresponsible – that what we’re doing here in Park Ridge?  Considering the widespread abuses in public employee compensation, pensions and benefits of which we already are aware here in Illinois, mindlessly doing what the “other guy” is doing might well be irresponsible per se. 

According to that survey, Hock’s “Total” compensation of $188,500 comes in at 11th of 17.  But that doesn’t seem to include his interest-free $350,000 mortgage loan, which should be worth another $10-15,000 a year in interest payments he doesn’t have to make; or the $5,000/year reduction of that mortgage.  Add just $15,000 to his $188,500 “Total” and he shoots right up to 8th on the list with comp. of $203,500 – only $700 behind the city mgr. of Mt. Prospect (with its 56,625 residents and $56 million more in its General Fund), but ahead of those of much bigger communities like Evanston and Arlington Heights. 

If that isn’t Exhibit A for what’s wrong with making these kinds of “comparable” decisions, nothing is. 

We think Hock’s performance and compensation should be judged on their own merits, not by what his arguable peers are wheedling out of their respective politicians.  And by that measure, Hock may well be overpaid. 

After more than two years on the job, we haven’t seen anything close to what we would consider an “A Game” from him.  Since the beginning of the year he has been flailing at a variety of problems, most of his own making. 

Let’s start with the 2010-11 budget, where he responded to marching orders from both the mayor and the Council for a timely-delivered balanced budget by coming in late with one sporting a $227,000 deficit.  His alibi, given at the February 15 Council meeting: He had no Finance Director and nobody to enter budget data into the computerized template – even though he was the one who failed to replace the departed Diane Lembesis and still hasn’t hired a finance director, even as we approach yet another budget preparation cycle. 

Since then, he has bungled the terminations of three “upper-management” City employees (Economic Development Director Kim Uhlig, Community Preservation & Development Director Carrie Davis, and Public Information Coordinator Aggie Stempniak) by negotiating super-severance deals well in excess of the eight-weeks maximum severance provided under the City’s employee manual – without prior notice to, and approval of, the City Council.  His alibi there: he was trying to save the City as much as $50,000 each of them might be able to collect if they filed for unemployment comp. and remained unemployed for a year or more.

City Attorney Everette “Buzz” Hill already has opined that Hock’s super-severance payment to Davis is void as exceeding Hock’s $20,000 discretionary spending authority, although it remains uncertain whether the City can recover the $25,000 payment from Davis or whether the best it can do is claim that as a set-off against her unemployment compensation claim.  Uhlig’s and Stempniak’s windfalls, however, remain in place because they did not exceed Hock’s spending authority, only his judgment.  

Uhlig’s super-severance payment seems especially galling because it appears Hock knew that Uhlig already had another job at the time he finalized her deal, rendering the danger of her collecting unemployment virtually non-existent.  Worse yet, Hock sat silently at the Council’s March 29th Finance & Budget COW while the aldermen debated and finally approved cutting the Deputy City Manager position and restoring Uhlig’s position, only to then be advised by Hock that Uhlig had “resigned” earlier that day. 

We really would like to see Hock succeed in this position, if only because of the fact that he inherited a stone-cold mess from his predecessor, Tim Schuenke; and because of the rude reception he received from then-mayor Howard Frimark after the Council selected Hock over Frimark’s first choice: a Village of Glenview bureaucrat who also happened to be one of his insurance clients. 

But Hock still seems way over his skis on too many matters that he should have figured out by now.  And he also seems a bit too arrogant, given what appears to be his uber-modest achievements in the position to date. 

So we hope the Council sustains the mayor’s veto of Hock’s contract for the reasons given by the mayor, and adopts a contract consistent with the terms recommended by the mayor. That would still keep Hock in the middle of city mgr. compensation, while perhaps providing him a much-needed wake up call that he needs to do better from here on out.

Hock’s contract was approved by a 4-3 vote, but 5 votes are needed to over-ride Schmidt’s veto.  Let’s see if Alds. DiPietro, Sweeney and Wsol stand firm this time around.

UPDATE  (10/19/10):  In a surprise move, Ald. Tom Carery (6th) joined Alds. DiPietro, Sweeney & Wsol in sustaining Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto of the city manager’s new contract over the over-ride votes of Alds. Allegretti, Bach & Ryan.