St. Charles OKs 9 buyouts in hopes of saving on payroll costs

Add St. Charles to the list of municipalities and government agencies to reap the benefits of offering an employee buyout package to cut costs and reduce budget woes.

St. Charles aldermen, sitting as the Government Operations Committee, approved the buyout applications of nine employees.

The city offered the buyout to about 50 employees. About 18 employees expressed an initial interest. Only the nine employees ultimately took the city up on its offer.

Despite that, the city will reap some immediate benefits to the budget this year, but far more savings next year with the employees gone.

Overall, the city will save almost $97,000 in the current budget year.

Three of the nine employees leaving will be replaced as two full-time employees and one part-time employee will come onto the payroll. The result will still be a net savings of more than $585,000 for the 2010/2011 budget year.

In a separate budgetary decision, state funding woes for local mental health organizations made doling out funding to those agencies a bit more difficult for aldermen this year. A total of $606,000 was on the table for 20 different agencies, many of which are set to receive reduced or no funding from the state as Springfield lawmakers continue to hash out a budget.

That left aldermen scrambling to adjust to the resulting service changes the agencies are putting in place to compensate for the lost dollars. Chief among those concerns is a reduced capacity to serve people who do not have health insurance or cash to pay for the services.

"I think we need to be aware if residents are no longer able to have mental health services," said Alderman Betsy Penny, who sits on the board of one of the mental health agencies. "It bothers me that they're not going to have access unless they have insurance or money to pay. I don't think we can say, 'Just don't worry about this.'"

Aldermen decided to approve the first installment of the payment, roughly $303,000, and work out a tracking mechanism to monitor the ability of St. Charles residents to receive care. The tracking is an effort to make sure the specific tax levy in place to fund the agencies is actually resulting in care for all St. Charles residents who need it.

The aldermen will then review the numbers from the care providers and determine if the second half of the funding should be awarded.