Schaumburg Township voters have decided to do away with their separate Road & Bridge District and the elected highway commissioner who runs it, with unofficial results showing the measure passing 60% to 40%. The change won't take effect until May 2029, assuming the results are certified, and follows an August vote by trustees to put the measure on the ballot, which Highway Commissioner Timothy Buelow said blindsided him.
According to unofficial results reported by the Daily Herald, Schaumburg Township voters chose both to abolish the road district as a separate unit of government and to eliminate the elected highway commissioner position. If results are certified, responsibilities will shift to the authority of the township board of trustees when the transition takes effect in May 2029. Once the transition takes effect, the Township of Schaumburg has said it will assume all of the district's rights, duties, assets, liabilities, and responsibilities, and that the district's levy will remain in place but be managed directly by the township board, according to a Township of Schaumburg notice posted ahead of the vote.
Township officials have said the overall financial impact of the change has not yet been determined, even as they pitched it in part as a cost-saver. The Road District currently has two employees, and the elected highway commissioner — a position paid an $18,000 annual salary — serves as its chief executive, per the township's own figures.
Why Trustees Pushed the Measure
Township Supervisor Tim Heneghan has said he believes abolishing the district will save taxpayers that $18,000 commissioner salary, and he doesn't think hiring a new employee to oversee the district's two existing workers will be necessary. Heneghan has pointed to Hanover and Elk Grove townships as places where a similar change of approach seemed to work. In Elk Grove Township, Supervisor Mike Sweeney has said eliminating that township's road district would save roughly $120,000 in staff costs, though the township would still need a part-time employee for contract and other highway functions, and it has not yet determined whether snowplowing and branch removal would be contracted to a private business or another government, according to the Journal & Topics.
Schaumburg Township trustees voted 3-1 in August to put the referendum question on the ballot, with Trustee Demetrius Gibson casting the lone dissenting vote. Gibson has said the decision was hurried and that more time could have been taken to deliberate, and he has said the public — including current Highway Commissioner Timothy Buelow — received little notice that a referendum was even being considered. Heneghan, for his part, has said he agreed with two trustees in August that residents should be the ones to decide the question.
Buelow Calls the Process Bad Faith
Buelow, who is a teacher and for whom the highway commissioner post is not his primary source of income, has said he was blindsided by the August vote to put the question on the ballot. He has said he believes educating voters on the pros and cons of the change was deliberately avoided, and he has said he believed the process was conducted in bad faith — going so far as to say the board went out of its way to prevent the public from knowing or understanding what they were voting on.
Buelow believes the current system for maintaining roads in unincorporated areas is best for residents, arguing that the board of trustees already oversees every other aspect of the township and won't have as much time as a dedicated highway commissioner to vet contractors for important maintenance projects. He has said the change will not save money and will instead add to the board's workload. Even so, Buelow has said he accepts the voters' decision and intends to cooperate fully with the transition to board oversight of unincorporated road maintenance through 2029.
Part of a Wider Trend Among Cook County Townships
Schaumburg isn't alone this cycle. Northfield Township voters also favored abolishing their own road district, by a wider margin of 64% to 36% with all precincts reporting, per the same Journal & Topics report on the night's results. Northfield's binding referendum asked whether to abolish its road district and transfer all its rights, powers, duties, assets, and liabilities to the township, according to a Northfield Township FAQ, which also notes that several other townships across Cook, Lake, and DuPage counties have already voted to fold their road districts into township government. The Daily Herald's reporting has acknowledged that surrounding townships have seen mixed success in making that same switch.
Figures on how many unincorporated roads are actually at stake in Schaumburg conflict depending on the source: the Daily Herald has reported the district maintains 10 centerline miles of unincorporated roads, while township materials describe the district as maintaining fewer than 10 miles. Either way, once the 2029 transition takes hold, it will be the township board — not an elected highway commissioner — deciding how those roads get plowed, patched, and paid for.
