A 2007 initiative to offer city staffers early retirement will save Evanston about half a million dollars in this year’s budget, according to estimates provided by the city Department of Human Resources.
The savings are mostly due to the city eliminating some of the positions left vacant by retirees, Human Resources Director Joellen Daley said. Additional savings come from lower salaries for new hires refilling the positions.
The Early Retirement Initiative, approved in January 2007, allowed city workers over the age of 50 with 20 years’ experience to retire and start receiving full benefits before the normal minimum age of60.
Although the initiative’s proposal said 51 out of 104 eligible city employees were interested in the program, aldermen and staff were shocked when 59 staffers, including eight of the nine department heads, ended up taking the offer.
Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th) said last spring that he expected fewer than 10 workers to take advantage of the initiative. He added that the plan “failed the city” because it caused a huge loss of “institutional memory.”
But despite the higher-than-expected number of employees who took the buyout, savings are right on line with projections. The proposal estimated the city could save about $5 million in 10 years. Daley now estimates the savings at $5.3 million during the next 10 years.
The savings will continue to build each year, Ald. Delores Holmes (5th) said.
The initiative allowed the city to cut 15 positions without having to lay anybody off, Finance Director Martin Lyons said. The cuts have occurred over the span of three years.
The city is saving $1.1 million in this year’s budget by eliminating 14 positions, Lyons said.
Of the 14, four and a third of them were unfilled from the early retirement initiative, Daley said. Those positions include the social services director, an equipment operator, the ecology center director and a librarian. The one-third figure comes from the elimination of the emergency preparedness manager, some of whose duties are now reorganized under a different position.
Staffing cuts are the most efficient way to trim a budget, Lyons said.
“Savings to big staffing changes are ones that mean a lot over the long haul,” he said. “So not buying a squad car is not as valuable as not filling the car with a cop.”
The final impact of the initiative will not be known until the city finds replacements for the vacant positions they decide to fill, Daley said. That could take until the end of the year.
