Straz breaks tie in Palos Heights consultant vote

By Jeff Vorva

After a discussion and argument that lasted close to a half hour, the Palos Heights City Council voted on what appeared to be a routine item on the June 20 agenda.

Mayor Bob Straz had to cast the deciding vote after a 4-4 stalemate by the aldermen to allow Tennessee-based McGrath Human Resources Group to conduct a classification and compensation study.

Straz said this decision was important because it’s a Governor J.B. Pritzker signature away from becoming a law in 2025 that municipalities will have to be transparent in job descriptions and pay.

For the most part, the eight on the council agreed with that but the argument came about with this particular firm and the cost.

Aldermen Donald Bylut, Jack Clifford, Robert Basso and Michael McGrogan voted “no” while Jeffrey Key, Brent Lewandowski, Heather Begley and Jerry McGovern voted for it.

Bylut said he did some research on the company and found out that the town of Woodstock used McGrath in 2019 and they charged thousands of dollars less and had a lot more jobs to deal with than in Palos Heights.

“Times change and it’s four years later, but the discrepancy kind of bothered me,” Bylut said. Clearly there was more work involved in Woodstock than it would be in Palos Heights.”

Bylut suggested looking into this further or possibly finding another vendor for the work but wasn’t thrilled with voting on it Tuesday night.

McGrogan, the finance chairman who brought the motion up for a vote, was even less convinced.

“It’s a complete waste of money,” McGrogan said. “It’s thousands and thousands of dollars when we are capable – between the people sitting here as well as our employees – of doing it.”

That was met with resistance from Straz, who said he preferred to have professionals to do things in a professional manner and “not try to do it on the back of an envelope.”

Begley added that the council’s role is not to write job descriptions.

McGovern said that City Administrator David Strohl, who made the recommendation of McGrath, should receive the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s time for David to allow himself to turn around and create his own plan,” McGovern said. “He goes around and gets an outside source and verified everything to make sure it’s right.

“We’ve already given him $50,000 on the budget and he came in with $35,000. He’s saving us 30% of what we’ve already accounted for. If he wants a consultant – I’ll give it to him.”

There was a side disagreement as Key was exasperated that this item was budgeted with no problem and went through the finance committee with no problem.

“How about if we have this discussion about consultants when we’re passing the budget?” he asked. “It is not right that we take a look and say, ‘Nah, I don’t want to spend that now.’

“Why is it in the budget?”