About 100 Cook County prosecutors flooded the Cook County Board meeting room last Tuesday morning to pressure board members about salaries.
The assistant state’s attorneys are asking for a 12.75 percent cost of living adjustment on salaries that have remained stagnant since 2004. Many held signs that read “12.75%.”
Cook County needs $46 million to give prosecutors the raise. Several options for raising the money are on the table, including selling off unused property that the county owns near Oak Forest Hospital.
Commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston) told prosecutors that no money has been available in the budget to provide for raises, and since the prosecutors are non-union members, they did not receive COLAs when other union members did.
Suffredin said he worried that the lack of COLAs was beginning to cause “morale issues” among Cook County prosecutors.
Finance committee members will vote on the raises at their next meeting.
