Rockton officials: Employees abused cell-phone privileges

Officials are clamping down on cell-phone use by municipal employees, some of whom allegedly abused their phone privileges and left the village with excessive charges.

During a meeting of the village's Public Works Committee on Monday night, Gordy Nygren, public works manager, would not say how much his department rang up on its most recent cell-phone bill. He would only say the village wants to stop "excessive" use by some of its five public works employees, each of whom has a village-issued cell phone.

"I'd rather not say how much at this point," Nygren said after the meeting. "I don't believe this is over with yet. Let's just say it was for the Public Works Department (as a whole)."

Trustee Scott Fridly said it has been "verbally understood" for some time what is acceptable cell-phone use.

Cell-phone costs are just some of the spending officials are taking a close look at as they try to trim unnecessary spending, trustee Gary Cooper said.

"There's a simple answer here," Fridly said. "Take the cell phones and give them their pagers back."

Staff writer Rob Baxter can be reached at 815-987-1369 or rbaxter@rrstar.com.