Evanston’s early retirement incentive program for city workers reportedly is hitting its target.
City Manager Julia Carroll has told aldermen that the program they adopted last year to cut expenses by sweetening the retirement pie for long-serving city employees is performing as expected.
She says 103 city employees on the full-time-equivalent staff of well over 800 were eligible for the plan, and the city’s personnel staff estimated that 31 would opt to take it.
So far, she says 21 workers have made use of the program and an additional 12 have said they plan to do so during the coming fiscal year.
The plan was designed to save the city an estimated $550,000 each year for the next 10 years, and Carroll says is on target to do that because of job consolidations and restructurings in the wake of the departures.
The program is triggering the departure of a number of top level city officials, including Health and Human Services Director Jay Terry, who left this month. Others scheduled to depart over the next several months include Assistant City Manager Judy Aiello, First Assistant Corporation Counsel Herb Hill, Community Development Director James Wolinski and Public Works Director David Jennings.
Is the City of Evanston
Is the City of Evanston really going to “save” $ 550,000 per year through the early retirement program ? Has a thoughtful cost/benefit analysis been conducted or is the $ 550,000 cost savings an illusion ? For example, assuming that the people taking the proposed package have experience and perform adequately at their jobs, which i do, how does factoring new hirees productivity and cost of training enter into the analysis ? Also, does the “$ 550,000 cost savings” factor in the added cost of inducing current employees to take the package and does it include incremental costs to the total pension plan ?