Union Township board of trustees debates meeting pay
Mount Pleasant resident and Union Township member Tim Hauck accused the board of trustees of corruption in their pay rates in Wednesday night's meeting.
Hauck brought payroll documentation to Wednesday's Union Township meeting to show that board members are paid too much.
“This is not in the best interest of the township,” Hauck said. “Look at how much they are paid, now that's abusive power.”
The board members were paid between $20,000-40,000 for 2013.
Trustees debated a new pay rate policy, and trustees Phil Mikus, Roger Hauck and Brian Mielke drafted a policy for review at the meeting.
“To me, this is very broad,” Roger Hauck said. “The policy has to be more defined.”
Issues as reimbursement for mileage and payments per meeting attended were discussed. Roger Hauck mentioned other policies he has noticed from other townships.
“Board members don't get paid for meetings,” he said. “They work under full-time and either they pay for mileage or have a set pay such as $125 per meeting.”
Trustee Supervisor Russ Alwood believes meetings are essential for board members' awareness of current issues.
“Trustees work full-time,” Alwood said. “They need to go to meetings to know what is going on. Education is important.”
Roger Hauck disagreed with the idea of paying per meeting.
He motioned that nobody get paid to go to extra meetings and just get paid for the mileage. Margie Henry said she opposed the mileage part of the payment. Mielke supported the motion.
Mielke said he would rather take the motion instead of having no policy put in place.
“I want to see a policy with no room for abuse,” Mielke said. “It is better to have no policy or bad policy. The motion is bad policy, but it is better than no policy.”
Section 3.10 in the Union Township Board policy manual states, “Because of poor governance costs, more than learning to govern well, the board will invest in its governance capacity.”
This does not run in conflict with the new policies being put in place to compensate for educating the members. In the current policy it states members who attend a meeting and are eligible for meeting pay will receive $50 for meetings one hour or less and $75 for meetings over one hour.
The motion failed and the draft was tabled until the next meeting on April 9.
A last-minute scheduled workshop is being held at 6 p.m. Wednesday to finalize a draft for voting at the April 9 meeting.
