I want my son to be an Orland firefighter when he grows up! Look at all the attributes of this job: he doesn't have to go to college, he'll spend most of his on-duty time assisting senior citizens who need medical assistance, he doesn't have to live in the district, and he will make an excellent salary. I have friends with graduate degrees who work 50+ hours a week, and they'll never be compensated with this high of a salary!

Al the taxpayer: Will your son be willing to wake up to the sound of a loud buzzer in the middle of the night, don 30 pounds of gear and run into a burning building? How about the day he has to pull a 2 year old girl out of a pool and attempt to revive her limp body while the grieving mother stands by screaming and crying.Will he be able to handle that? How will you feel knowing it's 100 degrees outside and your son is in all that gear fighting a particularly stubborn house fire, doing what he can to salvage the possessions of the stranger who called 911 knowing that your boy would answer the call. I can go on and on. The part no one seems to understand is that these men and woman get paid to risk their lives to save yours. I see them out there training at the tower on hot days, cold days dry days and wet days. I've seen them in the middle of a rain storm, on the street pulling people out of wrecked cars, and I've seen their rigs on the street in the middle of the night answering someone's call for help. Will your son be ready to answer that call? And if he does, will you be as proud of him as I am of mine?

Your comments have nothing to do with the article and while it's all very touching, with all due respect, your son made that career choice. Orland is a well run village but these salaries are crazy. This is not a big city like New York or Chicago. $20 million dollars for fire protection salaries is way out of line.

The average salary of a firefighter is high because of the overtime they are getting due to a lack of personnel. This is the same Board who put hiring the new 11 firefighters on hold. What are the base salaries vs national average?
Benefits were negotiated by the Board and Hickey voted for those benefits and took the union's money during the last election.

I suggest the Orland Fire District conduct a study on outsourcing their EMT services. Currently the Tinley Fire District outsources their EMT services to a private company.

Jack

Al the taxpayer - Along with gutsygirl37's comments, tell your son that to get above a part-time fireman status, he will most likely need to have a college degree or served 4 years in the military with an honorable discharge. Most FD's in the suburbs will only fill their full-time FD positions with colleged degreed or former military individuals first. Non-degreed or non-military usually start as part-time & wait a lot longer to be moved up to full-time.

Frank - I beg to differ on your comment "Orland is a well run village". It most definitely is not. In addition to salaries being out of control - they cut needed services but then give each other raises. They also use taxpayer money for unjustified lawsuits & real estate spending. Plus recently, streets were closed at incorrect spots on 143rd & when asked about it, OP said it was construction worker error. When it happened again, I blame OP for not staying on top of it & checking. OP also fails miserably when it comes to the Metra lots, both parking & maintaince. They refuse to be accountable for things Metra says its the Village's responsiblity to handle (salting, bathroom, parking meter/permits).

As for the OP firemen salaries, I would like to see a break down of how much of that pay was for OT & how many hours. If it comes down to needing to pay them all the OT because they were short staffed, then I'll be more outragged they didn't approve & hire the 11 fireman a lot sooner.

Hire the firefighters that are needed to man the stations on each shift and stop paying overtime. If the fire district spend $2.8 million on overtime in 2010, hiring 11 new firefighters would be a hell of a lot cheaper, even with the inflated number is this report that includes overtime and benefits. The fact that benefits are being added into the "salary" figure is misleading. Sure, benefits cost money but any business that offers beneftis has added costs. Just don't mislead the public into believing the firefighters are earning over $170,000 or more in iNCOME because they don't.

I find it interesting that Mr. Hickey has never seen this budget information before now even though he's been on the board for over 2 years. He's either been clueless for over two years or he doesn't want to take any responsibility for the money that was spent, and he approved, before he was born again to his current conservative, fiscal ideology.

The fact that this story made it to the front page of the Chicago Tribune, and that Mr. Hickey contributed information for the article convinces me that he is trying to get himself more exposure, city, county and statewide, for his future political plans to run for a higher, full time, political office.

The people of Orland Park would scream to high heaven if they had the ambulance service that is provided by the village of Tinley Park. The TInley Park ambulance service is outsourced and the quality of service is substandard compared to the service provided by Orland Park paramedics. One way or another you pay for what you get and I don't want to pay with my own, or my family member's life, to save $$.

Ben, nice timing. Gee, what a surprize. I'll have to share this info with a member of my family who works for the US Forest Service and has fought fires for weeks on the sides of mountains enduring unreal conditions. She, will be shocked. Air conditioned building, free uniforms, free food, and the pay ain't bad either. What's not to like? Rough, really rough.

I think it is worth noting that firefighting whether in Orland Park, for other municipal departments and districts, or for the U.S. Forest Service, is not easy no matter where it is done. It is life risking work and no matter how people feel about the Fire District's finances, no one should be downplaying the importance of firefighting anywhere. I have seen several homes burn to the ground in more rural parts of Illinois where they simply didn't have readily-available resources to fight a blaze, and believe me the pain felt by those who at best lost memories, or at worst lost loved ones, is something I don't wish on anyone.

OP Resident, for what it's worth we put in our tables the differences between the wages, wages with overtime, and wages with both overtime and benefits factored in.

Hey Frank it is true that Orland is not New York or Chicago , they both have 5-6 men on a company while Orland does the same job with 3 and fire is not any hotter in the big cities.
Orland Fire has had two line of duty deaths and many line of duty disabilities .

Most tradesmens jobs are dangerous. You except that when you hire on. I've seen men die at work. No movie was made about them though. This fire departments costs are unprecedented any way you look at it. That's why it's in the news today. It's like no other and it won't last in this economy. It's over.

Thanks paul for still having a low IQ, you never ever let me down. I love hearing your anti civil service rants!!! I just spoke with a suburb of chicago firemen and asked him why all of these firefighters just sit in the air conditioning, he informed me he was crooked and does not need to go on calls, since there are never emergencies outside of forests........crazy I know. I think these firepeople are a bunch of idiots for working 24 hr shifts not being home at night, working on christmas, dealing with old people at 2am and 4 am and 5 am, idiots.. Also Al you might be good competition for pauli p as far as the low IQ area, most firefighter/paramedics I hear have a minimum of associates,bachelors,masters....also almost 2yrs of medical training along with years of state fire training and continuing education that will never end.

Let get this straight. The president of the Fire Board, Jim Hickey, released information that a majority of the firefighters made over $100,000 last year. This is obviously intended to incite public opinion against the firefighters and distract the public from the political shenanigans Hickey, Rhode, and Evoy have been doing.
They used their political mouthpiece (Ray Hanania), being paid by the taxpayers, to attack the men and women who put their lives on the line for our community. Disgusting. Whats next? Are they going to attack members of the armed forces?
If Hickey wants to be elected to higher office, then his business mismanagement, foreclosure, hiring a PR man who calls every critic a racist, hiring unqualified political allies to professional positions, causing legal fees to skyrocket, et al should be what is taken into consideration, not using professional FF/EMTs as a political football.
Hickey is a typical pol. Uses professionals to make himself better, appoints unqualified hacks to public positions, and is fleecing the vendors for campaign cash.
I know, I know Hanania, we are all racists.

Lets see if I have this right. Ther Fire District spent $2.5 million in overtime to cover personnel shortages, yet suspended the hiring of the 11 new FFs that would make the overtime unnecessary. Unless each of these new FFs will be making $185,000 a year, the district will be saving money by hiring them. One immoral act of holding the 11 FFs hostage being perpetuated by another, the needless expenditure of public money so Hickey can have a soapbox.

Hey Frank ,True they chose the job with a promise of a decent pension and compensation that now you and the Politicians want to change .

Hey, not out of line with the $100k we pay my son's Kindergarten teacher to teach him how to write his name and count to 10. I know, I know, those Kindergarten classrooms are practically a war zone - dangerous stuff. Kudos to the unions! They are about to run the public sector (schools, fire districtts, county, workers) into bankruptcy like they did with so many private sector businesses. All you have to do is look at the auto industry and Detroit to see how this all plays out. Disgusting. But we don't have to worry about Orland Park. The trustees here don't have any problem taxing us to death as is evident by the 100% property tax increase they passed on to us last year.

Great story Ben.

Does anyone know how many of the firefighters live in the district? I think that would make a big difference for me. It's also interesting that I received an automated survey yesterday asking whether or not I would support a referendum ending the Orland fire protection district. I know I responded to end the district and form a Orland park fire department.

Nicole, do you live in the town where u work? Y does that matter. They take an oath to serve and protect the residents of the village that employ them... And if it became a department, instead of a district, hickey and some other dirty politicians would be out Of a side job and it becomes the villages taxing business...

pretty controversial topic.

I agree with Chris. I don't have any issue with fire fighters or police officers hired from outside the district. As long as they make it to work on time and serve and protect us better then someone else could, we shouldn't care where they live.

If my house was on fire or I needed a paramedic, I'd rather the person coming to save my life was one of the best in their field, instead of someone who is just so so but got the job because they lived in district.

Thank God it wouldn't be Paul Cervenka, James Hickey Chis$$$$ Evoy or Dr Rhode$. They probably would re use needles to save money, or worse wait till your dead and blue and rigor sets in before they waste any supplies on saving your life. IMO

Why is it that America is turning on itself to destroy the middle class?

A referendum to eliminate the Fire District and change to a Fire Department, run by village politicians, is a serious matter and the people of Orland Park need to be provided with honest, unbiased, non-partisan and factual data that spells out what there is to gain and lose. There was a reason the fire district was formed years ago; do your research and you'll see the we are better off as a district than we were before.

Outsourcing ambulance service is another issue that requires a lot of discussion and debate between knowlegdeable and reasonable individuals. There are so many aspects of outsourcing ambulance service such as the inferior quality of response and the fact that these ambulance services charge a lot of money for very few ambulances to cover the entire district.

I don't know how everyone else feels about this but I want to know the truth about why Hickey, Rhode and Evoy want to destroy this department? Do we want to happen to us what happend to Palos? Are our firefighters going to be begging the residents of Orland for money in the future because these three are going to deplete the money that the department has in order to propel their political careers.

What does anyone out there know about Evoy and Rhode and their real motivation for getting on the fire district board in order to discredit and damage the department.

Two points.

Those of you who denounce Orland Park Patch for its supposed bias and complicity in manipulating "the public into thinking less of a fire department (that) is better for the people," should know that Hickey has set up an OFPD blog for the purpose of "clarifications and comments on published articles in the news media..." and more. (http://ofpdblog.blogspot.com/) If that doesn't make our independence self-evidently clear, I don't know how else to change your mind.

Second, I often hear talk of a referendum to dismantle OFPD and bring it under control of the Orland Park Village Board. But what about Orland Hills? I'm not taking a side. Just food for thought.

Going off of that, I was told by Rhode that the blog was to insure that "you don't edit what we are saying anymore." When asked for specific instances where we did that I wasn't given any.

As I've said before, thinly veiled allusions to biases and claims of serving other entities are common when we run material people disagree with, and they certainly don't change our approach.

Lets take a realistic approach to this new information regarding the pay scales for the OPFD. One, it is a significant salary being paid. In today's economy I believe it is prudent to review the entire salary structure, benefits, etc. If we need to hire the 11 new identified positions, lets also consider that these new 11 will also add costs (future taxes increases) to support current benefits (health & retirement). Its tax dollars that support this. My proposals to put on the table.
1. Freeze existing salaries for the next 5 years.
2. Salaries for any new hires are at a 25% less rate of current base pay. The $70,000 starting salary is now at $52,500.
3. Health insurance....is it now funded entirely by the tax payer, or do the employess contribute to their care. New hires, premiums should be born the the tax payer. As salarys increase, a % is should be born by the firefighter
4. Existing employees, is their health care free? If so, 3 to 5% should start to be deductied to help off set costs. That's fair in todays economy and in today work environment.

Finally, everyone feels that their not paid enough. They have earned the right by experience, education and what ever to these salaries However the tax payer is paying for this. It's a municipal position that is paid for by taxes. Everyone needs to realize that times have changed. No longer can we afford the current salary and benefit structure. A hard fact of life now is that this need to change. Now

The employees are not getting "free" medical insurance. Each employee make contributions to pay for the type if insurance they decide thy want to pay for, be it a PPO or HMO.

Robert, taxes don't fund pipefitters, carpenters etc. What taxpayers want is affordable fire protection and this isn't it. YOU took the side of the fire district when your job was to be the taxpayers advocate. YOU got there backing for the price of....what? 11 new hires? YOU couldn't deliver though because, YOU got fired ! YOU were exposed ! We've taken great care of our fire personel, it's the leadership and work agreements that need a house cleaning and we started with YOU. The taxpayers $$$ will have the final say. Even then President Partick Maher voted against hiring these 11 new hires. Tell the taxpayers how much YOU were going to have to raise their taxes to pay for them. Go ahead, tell us.

Robert: Great to here you are a heathcare professional, now go get some help.
Your playing with numbers, the facts dont lie. As Ray posted a week or two ago Both Evoy and Rhode got more votes then any other candidate in the last election for fire district.
So quit your wining and come to the next meeting. either put up or shut up.

You know what I hate about this blog ... it gets reduced to name calling and false accusations by the likes of Mr. Cervenka and others. Cooler heads have to prevail if we want to get this resolved.
Ben, thanks for your effort to provide a forum for discussion but I think this is one of those subjects where the passionate supporters from both sides of the debate have been reduced to rude, accusatory bullies.

O P Resident, know what I don't like about this blog, people that post in anonymity but get equal voice in public forums. Usually, those that are part of the issue or those that intend to run for office and don't want to be held accountable. In either case, no name equals empty words. Like reading graffiti.

And Paul also has a point. I've said before if everyone used their real names things would be a lot more civil here by default. A tip of the hat to those willing to do so.

It is a shame that some people dwell on the name above the comments. It does not matter I could make up a name and you would never know. I believe it is the content of the comments that matter. If you can not argue your side you than will argue useless issues of a name or disrecpectful comments. It is obvious that Paul does not like the fire fighters, He dislikes the department hense the people that work there. They probably don't care for him to much either but the difference between paul and the firefighters is, if you fell firefighters would help you up. If you needed help firefighters would be there. Paul would not do that probably for anyone. But as much as they might not like this man, they would risk there life and go above and behond to help him. Paul complains about taxes and he is on the low side in Orland around 6000, He has no problem spending money on little trains but an education for a child, a safe neighborhood, and professional firefighters and paramedics to help people in need, which happens every day in Orland. What Paul is saying is screw everyone else, I don't need it, so it is un-needed. A lot of people on this site feel the same way and that is the truth. Why do you think your home valves are higher than other areas? Because you live here? Look at the communities with little commerical areas. Why, because of the safety of there goods. People won't shop there, A community needs good police an fire to feel safe. Becareful you may save now but pay later

Zinedine, I've spent a fortune helping send all my neighbors children to school for 35 years. Never a complaint from me. I have no issue with firefighters. I do have an issue with the current and future costs of a taxing body that became a political patronage army for some very selfish idealistic people. As a retired tradesman, I'm very proud of my award winning models and many magazine articles. Thankyou very much. Don't forget to vote.

Thank you Paul, that was the first sincere not hateful comments from you. I agree 100% that we all have to worry about future costs of things and of political games from past and current boards. All of the firefighters have had to test, and if you ask them it is not easy and in the past there were from several hundred to thousands that challenged the test and what you have on Orland is the best of the best. There are no political patronage in that. There are now laws on promotional testing so that also eliminates patronage. You can go after the administration but you come off attacking the fire fighters. You wrote that a pipefitter dies at work and no parade. It is very sad when someone dies period, they have love one's that have to deal with pain that well no words can describe it. The reason this happens when a firefighter or police officer or soldier dies is because they died helping someone or to secure the peace or to protect our rights to argue. This is our way of saying thank you for your service and giving us the ultimate sacrifice so others may live. I don't think any firefighter wants that, but it does help a family deal with the loss. Look at that little boy who gave the baseball he got and gave it to a little boy. What coverage that received around the nation. Why, because this country loves when someone does something from the heart for others.
For the record I am sorry about your lawn, we may disagree on things but damaging one's property over it is wrong.

We want HONEST AND OPEN GOVERNMENT but when this agency lies to you. Why would they do this for someone's political gain? After looking over the numbers of a document on Orland’s website I found they did not add up. A document by the Illinois Municipals league found in the time frame they examined the employer contribution rate as a percentage of payroll fluctuated between 17.70% and 22.04%. The average contribution during that time was 19.9%. I took a salary from there own paperwork for ease of calculating. (102,753 and 19.9% of that is 20,447). They have 49,235 which is 48% of the employee’s salary. Now who believes that! Firefighters pay 9.455% of there pay into the pension so are we to believe that the total pension contribution for one person is 57.455 of the total salary? The firefighters also pay 11% of there pay for healthcare. Remember extra pay ie. Overtime, working in the fire prevention office, fire investigations, training is not pensionable due to the varied pay rates and payouts. How about someone look at these numbers more closely like why is Kerry Sullivan who wrote the report and made 96,905 had only 11,500 in pension contributions, but a firefighter with the roughly the same salary 97, 246 had 46,597 in supposed pension contributions. Figures lie, and Liars figure. I am asking the reporters from the patch please investigate this and lets see if you are blind to politics but want the truth out for all.

I am appaulled that Orland Firefighters make over 100k and not live in town. I am a single mother making 43k a year and live in Orland Park. If someone wants to work for Orland Park they should live in Orland Park. I am sure if it was a requirement these fire guys would move in town. My grandfather and uncle were Chicago firefighters. They would chuckle looking at these figures.

The Tribune also reprinted Hickey's numbers but their article showed no favor toward him, actually it showed Hickey making a fool of himself.
"Back in school, no one thinks that a firefighter is going to make $200,000 a year with pay and benefits," Hickey said. SOUNDS LIKE HICKEY (FROM ZIP REALTORS) IS JEALOUS. BUT.....
Not everyone agrees with that sentiment, however. Hillside Fire Chief Mike Kuryla told the Trib, “With the average, blue-shirt fireman today making about $70,000 after a couple of years on the job, it wouldn’t take much overtime to get $100,000. Considering what these men and women do for us, risking their lives for the safety of others on a daily basis, we find it hard to criticize their compensation. If one of the more affluent towns in the south suburbs can afford to pay their firefighters six figures, then we’re all for it.
Orland fire district Trustee Martin McGill said part of the reason total pay is so high is there aren't enough employees to fill the slots, so the district must pay overtime. "It's just that we've got the best fire district in the state of Illinois and probably in the top five in the United States," McGill said. But Hickey said "When the union contract comes up for renewal in December 2012, we're definitely going to have to renegotiate HICKEY, RHODES, -N- EVOY had the fire chief suspended "on charges that probably don't hold any water," McGill said.

Since the Liz Gorman three, Evoy, Blair Rhode$ and James Hickey are so transparent and see no harm in their actions how about they post their tax returns and yearly gross for the voters to see? How much should a trustee make or Rhodes how much is fair pay for a doctor? How much should a real estate broker like James Hickey make? Or the family businessman Chris Evoy, how much is fair pay for him? The voters want to know.

WHO DOES THIS SOUND LIKE? Craig said the village pays more than $100,000 annually for each firefighter in salary, overtime, benefits and pension contributions. That's a payout "we just can't afford," Craig said. He said "any job I ever had, I never made $100,000 a year"
Oak Brook Village President John Craig portrays himself as a fiscal conservative who favors privatizing more of the fire department and laying off firefighters to scale back costs for salaries and for pensions. But at the same time, Craig and his wife together collect four public pensions totaling about $142,000 a year, and he stands to add a fifth government pension when he retires from his current job with the state of Illinois, a Better Government Association/Daily Herald investigation reveals.

Oak Brook is in an unusual predicament because there isn't a village property tax levy. Instead, the local government relies on sales tax revenues, which have been sluggish. (SOMETHING SOME VILLAGE OFFICIALS WANT TO DO, ABOLISH THE OFPD.)

But Oak Brook firefighters union President George Grodek says the base salary for village firefighters is roughly $69,000 a year — among the lowest in DuPage County for municipal departments."He's collecting multiple ... pensions — yet he wants to take away mine," Grodek said. "The hypocrisy is just remarkable."

Paul, still want to thank you for your uneducated responses. What do you pay in one year for car insurance? What do you pay in a year for homeowners insurance? Now, what do you pay for your fire dept. tax insurance? You pay equal amounts generally. You are crying like an infant, although an infant is less annoying. You should move to tinley and see what it is like to pay almost the same amount and get two 20 year olds with no experience on a trace ambulance. Paul, what do the orland firefighters make in comparison to what your hourly rate was as a tradesman? I know that pipefitters,plumbers, and electricians all make way more an hour. Also, if you wish to continue your crying, I CHALLENGE you to going and getting your paramedic license and fire science degree, this way when you talk, people won't consider you having such an intellectual disability. Right now you sound like a 7 year old when you TRY and argue.

JAMES HICKEY IS HONORING HIMSELF, AND WANT OTHERS TO DONATE TO HONOR HIMSELF AT, WHERE ELSE, A BAR. CAN YOU SAY, DELUSIONAL, GRANDIOSE, SELF ABSORBED, MISGUIDED, PUBLIC ENEMY TRYING TO DOWNGRADE OUR FIRE PROTECTION. HE AND CHRI$ EVOY AND DR. RHODE$ ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE TAXPAYERS THAT IT IS A BAD THING FOR THEIR FIRE PROTECTION TO BE ONE OF THE TOP 5 IN THE STATE.

An electronic flier for the event calls upon all red-white-and-blue-blooded locals to join “in Honoring The New President of the Board.” WHILE HE HONORS HIMSELF!

Hickey said this will be the second fundraiser he has held in his name. Public records show that contributors over the years include Coach's Corner in Orland Park and Office Max in Orland Hills FIRE FIGHTERS DO NOT SUPPORT HIS CAMPAIGN THIS YEAR.

More than once, Hickey has compared his actions to those of this nation’s forebears. He and trustees Christopher Evoy and Blair Rhode have declared financial transparency and budget cuts their mandate, often at the entreaty of other board members.

“I see us as rebuilding the fire district just like how America reinvented itself,” Hickey said.

His seat expires in 2015. GOOD RIDDANCE

According to figures Hickey released he is not filling a vacant battalion chief spot, he is cutting board meetings to once a month and eliminated the public education director but hired the infamous, Ray Hanania to represent Orland Park Residents Fire Dist Hickey said that he is hiring lobbyist Cheryl Axley http://ilga.gov/senate/Senator.asp?MemberID=1127 COSTING TAXPAYERS $60,000.