Aurora seeking 'voluntary' separation agreements

Facing $4 million in lost tax revenue since 2006, the city of Aurora Wednesday offered voluntary separation agreements to about 200 full- and part-time nonunion employees.

The eligible workers were notified of the offer in a packet they received Wednesday morning and have until July 24 to apply. They would have to leave their jobs by Sept. 15.

Retiring employees may be given until Nov. 30 to allow them to accrue additional sick-time payouts or reach milestone anniversaries.

The incentives include credit for six weeks of additional service; six months additional coverage for dental and medical insurance; a year of additional dental and medical coverage for employees who have been with the city for 10 years or longer; and a waiver of any repayments for previous tuition assistance from the city.

The city also is in the process of negotiating the right to offer separation packages to all of its roughly 1,000 unionized workers.

"We'd like to offer this to all of our unions," Human Resources Director Alex Alexandrou said. "As we speak, the police management and fire management have allowed us to release it to their members."

Alexandrou said they are seeking the voluntary departures to lessen or eliminate the need for involuntary layoffs. The city's $4 million budget deficit is expected to grow before year's end.

Director of Finance and City Treasurer Brian Caputo said the plan has been assembled over the past month as early revenue numbers - showing large decreases in property taxes, gaming taxes and various sales taxes - became available.

"I've been in this business 20 years or so now and I've never seen anything even remotely close to this," Caputo said. "Never."

Assistant Chief of Staff Carrie Anne Ergo said the city does not yet know what the "magic number" of applicants will be to stave off involuntary layoffs.

"We're going to be looking at potentially consolidating certain areas. That's on the table to look at right now," she said. "The hope is that we'll have a few dozen, at least several dozen, take this and that is going to require us to consolidate operations."

The city enacted a hiring freeze in mid-2008 on all nonessential personnel, eliminated most travel and conference expenditures and asked department heads to pare 5 percent of expenses from their operations. Mayor Tom Weisner said that wasn't enough.

"Even though we certainly reduced our expectations for 2009 in terms of the revenues for our 2009 budget, those revenues are falling even short of those reduced expectations and basically we see the country in the worst economic condition since the Great Depression," he said. "We took measures in the 2008 budget to reduce expenditures, but the revenues keep declining beyond what we could even anticipate at the time, so it's incumbent on us to work toward reducing expenditures further in order to be in line with the revenues that we expect to see in 2009."

Weisner said the fall's budget preparation sessions will shed light as to whether layoffs or other measures will be necessary. Ergo said raising taxes has not been discussed.

"Increasing the property tax levy has not been discussed. I would say that it is not the mayor's intent to raise taxes," Ergo said. "People right now are struggling and the idea is to reduce our expenditures to the extent that we can."

Alexandrou said he's confident the voluntary program will save jobs in the end.

"This is going to be difficult sledding for all of us. There's going to be nobody left unaffected by this in one way, shape or form," Alexandrou said. "This is phase one so we just have to be nimble enough and savvy enough to respond quickly as things unfold and I think we're up to the task."