County Board to Consider Raising Election Judge Pay
The Will County Board at its March 16 meeting will consider a request from Will County Clerk Lauren Staley-Ferry to raise salaries of election judges by $50.
Election judges now receive $150 for serving on an election day, if they complete training prior. If approved by the County Board, judges would receive $200 for their service, beginning with the April 4, 2023, Consolidated Election.
County officials heard at the board’s March 9 Executive Committee meeting it still has been difficult to recruit a sufficient number of election judges to guarantee full staffing at the polls on election days.
There have been times judges were allowed to serve at the last minute without full training to make sure representation was sufficient, they heard. More judges have been necessary in recent years due to Same Day Voter registrations and an “increasingly scrutinized election environment.”
The County Board also will consider a one-time bonus for 18 non-front-line employees at the county-owned Sunny Hill Nursing Home who worked well beyond their normal hours without compensation to comply with the pandemic-era Federal and State regulations for long-term care facilities.
Additionally, according to the resolution, Sunny Hill Administrator Maggie McDowell worked 33 days in excess of her regular scheduled shifts for which she was not compensated.
The resolution recommends appropriating $34,800 in the county’s portion of American Rescue Plan funds to make a one-time payment to the 18 Sunny Hill Nursing Home employees, and a one-time $5,000 to McDowell for working 33 additional days without compensation.