CROWN POINT | Lake County Councilwoman Christine Cid, D-East Chicago, has shifted her full-time job in county government from the clerk's to the treasurer's office.
Cid started work last month for County Treasurer John Petalas. His office deals with property tax billings and collections.
She remains on the County Council, a part-time job, where she is one of seven elected officials who set the county's spending limits and votes on ordinances enforcing fiscal policy on more than 1,670 co-workers.
She first disclosed her move Tuesday at a County Council meeting where she twice abstained from voting on budget transfers requested by the treasurer's office to avoid a potential conflict of interest.
Although a new state law forbids elected officials from working for the government unit they oversee, Thomas Dabertin, county government's human resources director, said Cid's job change doesn't force her to choose between her two jobs at this time.
"Its a transfer, not a new employment," Dabertin said.
However, Cid acknowledged she will have to make that choice by 2014 when she is next up for re-election. She said she hasn't decided her future yet.
Cid will paid $24,353 annually as a deputy treasurer and $29,338 a year as a council member.
Cid, a 21-year veteran of county government, started work in the North Township assessor's office. She was a deputy clerk in 2004 when she was first named a county councilwoman.
Her move to the treasurer's office comes 16 months after Lake Clerk Michael Brown demoted her from a supervisory position in his East Chicago office and reduced her pay to $20,000 from $38,828.
Cid said at the time Brown's move coincided with a public dispute she had just had with Lake Councilwoman Elsie Franklin, D-Gary, over moving county employees to a four-day work week. Brown, a political ally of Franklin, said at the time he wasn't punishing Cid, only reorganizing his administration.
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