Glen Ellyn Finance Director Resigns

Glen Ellyn Finance Director Jon Batek, announced his resignation from his position at the end of October earlier this month, leaving the village just shy of 10 years of service in Glen Ellyn. He will be returning to Carol Stream, to an organization he previously served in the capacity of Assistant Finance Director for nearly five years prior to coming to Glen Ellyn. 

Batek stated, "I have a unique opportunity to take over for my previous boss Stan Helgerson who retired on June 30.  Stan was mentor to me so this opportunity is one which has special meaning for me".

Batek has a long history with Glen Ellyn, having grown up nearby Villa Park.  He has vivid memories of learning to skate on Lake Ellyn and his driver's education lessons that often brought him into the village.  As a kid, he frequently made use of the Prairie Path.  To this day, his favorite part of his bike commute to work every morning is the stretch on Crescent Boulevard that he says has, "an amazing canopy of trees". 

Batek came to work in Glen Ellyn during the final months of Joe Wark's tenure as Village President and worked through the full terms of Previous Village Presidents Greg Mathews and Vicky Hase.  He most recently served for Village President Mark Pfefferman.   When asked if he had any particular fond memories of working for any of the Village Presidents, Batek responded, "I have the utmost respect for all of our elected leaders.  They have a very difficult job, and they work tremendously hard at it and they all do it because they love their community.  It is always my hope that the work we, as Village staff, have done here has helped to make their jobs easier or to have facilitated best outcomes for the community."

Batek also worked for four Village Managers during his time as financial director.  He worked for previous Village Managers Gary Webster, Robin Weaver, Curt Barrett (acting/interim) and current Village Manager Steve Jones.  

"While I have worked for a number of managers over my years here at Glen Ellyn, I certainly spent most of my time under the leadership of Gary Webster," Batek said. "Gary was a fantastic person who was extremely patient with me and was really the one who showed me what Glen Ellyn was all about.  I have never met anyone who was more centered in community than Gary.  Some of my fondest memories of working with him were the many early Saturday and Sunday mornings working on the budget.  It was kind of funny because we wouldn't necessarily even plan on doing this. We would both just kind of be here, and the next thing you knew, we were ripping into reports and hashing through numbers, trying to make it work so that we were able to put a plan together that best addressed the needs of the community.  Blue jeans, sweatshirts and an endless supply of Diet Coke were a great formula for some excellent collaboration back in those days."

In the last 10 years, Batek has completed Glen Ellyn's last 10 budgets.  During that time, he has reduced total staffing in the Finance Department by more than 25% and which resulted in taking on a greater workload.  That included in-sourcing payroll processing and eliminating a costly contract service.  The Finance Department did a complete financial system replacement and leveraged technology to help their work group as well as other departments become more efficient. 

The Finance Department, under Jon's leadership, also refinanced much of the Village's outstanding debt and netted more than $1 million in taxpayer savings.  The expanded work, while improving the amount and quality of financial communications with the Village Board and the public, resulted in some rewards.  The Village was just notified this week that the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award, as determined by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), will be awarded to the Village for the second year.  In addition, the first time effort to complete a Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR), which is a layperson's guide to the Village's financial performance and position,  received national recognition from the GFOA.

"Working in Glen Ellyn has been a very rewarding experience," Batek said. "Much of that has to do with the fine people I have had the pleasure of working with over the years.  My fellow department directors are an extraordinary group of people who are not only extremely talented and dedicated in their own right, we also work very closely as a team.  We all understand the importance of collaborating effectively to ensure seamless service delivery to our customers.  I am also so very proud of all of the individuals working in the Finance Department, they have been a joy to work with and are equally dedicated to our mission of providing excellent service to people in the community."

Batek's last comment about leaving Glen Ellyn was this: "My main objective with any position I take is to add value where I can and to assist the organization in realizing its objectives, and to hopefully leave the places I work in better shape than when I came."

One can see that Jon has certainly made his mark on Glen Ellyn and is leaving the Village in a "better shape" that when he came in.  His last day in office will be Friday, October 22.