City seeks to slash payroll costs

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

AURORA — With a projected $18 million deficit looming for 2011, the city has once again offered its employees the chance to voluntarily leave city service, with incentives.

For those who stay, the city is requiring each employee to give up 10 percent of their salary. That money can come from wages or benefits. Chief Management Officer Carie Anne Ergo said that however it’s done, the city is seeking a total of $8.4 million in savings.

That amount, Ergo said, would minimize upcoming layoffs, but not prevent them.

In a memo circulated Wednesday to all of the city’s 955 employees, Aurora’s Human Resources Department offered a buyout deal to all current full-time employees with at least one year of service, provided those employees are not in the process of resigning or retiring. Those taking the deal will get four weeks of severance pay in addition to what they are entitled.

Additionally, employees with 10 years or more of service will get eight months of full health and dental coverage paid through COBRA, and employees with fewer than 10 years will get four months.

The deadline for employees to take the city up on the deal is Oct. 13. Those who do cannot be re-employed with the city for at least two years, and city officials reserve the right to deny any application if losing that employee would have “an adverse impact on critical operations.”

Last June, the city offered a similar deal to its employees, although the incentives were higher: six weeks of severance pay and a full year of benefits for those who served 10 years or more. (Those with fewer than 10 years got six months of benefits coverage.)

The city was facing a $19 million deficit then, and though the buyout offer attracted 37 applicants, city officials ended up conducting two rounds of layoffs, reducing its work force by a total of 75 employees.

City officials are considering a number of strategies to stave off the projected deficit, including furlough days, suspension of certain benefits, cuts in pay and reductions in work hours. The city plans to suspend the tuition assistance program and eliminate health and wellness reimbursements.

Within the next week, Ergo said, the city will begin asking each of its 10 employee bargaining units for concessions. The asked-for reduction applies to the 132 executives and non-exempt employees as well, Ergo said, and those cutbacks will be instituted shortly. Ten percent “is expected from everybody,” she said.

Ergo did not give a release date for the 2011 budget, but said the concessions would likely be included. The fiscal year ends on Dec. 31.