Naperville halts hiring freeze to fill public safety jobs

Naperville will temporarily lift its hiring freeze in order to fill several unexpected vacancies in both its police and fire departments.

The city manager also will be allowed to transfer employees internally in any department, under a staffing plan councilmen approved Tuesday.

All of the staff changes, including police and fire, will be cost-neutral or result in savings.

In September, the city instituted the hiring freeze to address a $5.1 million budget deficit projected to increase to $11 million in the upcoming fiscal year. It also eliminated 23 vacant positions and cut another 20 employees.

Now faced with holes in its staffing, the council agreed in a 7-2 vote Tuesday to allow City Manager Doug Krieger to move employees around internally as long as costs remain neutral. External hiring would still need council approval.

Mayor George Pradel and councilmen Joe Dunn, Kenn Miller, Doug Krause, John Rosanova, Richard Furstenau and Grant Wehrli voted in favor of the proposal.

"Under our new city manager I think we need to allow him to have the latitude to make those command decisions as he sees fit," Wehrli said. "I think he's got his marching orders well in hand and will take that to heart if he can find ways to (achieve) savings."

Councilmen Robert Fieseler and James Boyajian voted against it. Boyajian expressed concern with limiting the council's flexibility when it has yet to create its budget for the new fiscal year that begins May 1. That process begins later this month.

The council also agreed Tuesday to fill several unexpected vacancies in public safety positions.

In the fire department, the retirement of a battalion chief in July 2008 left a vacancy and his duties have since been split between other employees. Council approved filling the position internally. The resulting firefighter/paramedic vacancy will be filled at a later date.

New fire Chief Mark Puknaitis said he plans to restructure the department this year in a way that will result in additional cost savings.

In the police department, the unexpected death of an officer in December and the resignation of a telecommunicator left vacancies that the city council will allow to be filled externally.

City staff said filling these positions would prevent the city from needing to increase overtime expenditures and would keep staffing levels adequate for public safety. Four police officer positions and three telecommunicator positions were already eliminated in the recent staff cuts.