Sugar Grove workers to get unpaid days off

Sugar Grove will shut village offices for two days and send 25 employees home without pay as it tries to keep a spending hole from getting bigger.

The village board decided this week to close village hall and the public works building on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 18.

The two days off will save the village $7,400 as it tries to stay within its policy of not running a deficit of more than $100,000 in its operating budget. Finance Director Justin VanVooren currently projects a deficit of $114,474.

Over the last three years, the village has taken $500,000 out of its savings accounts to make up for budget shortfalls.

The village will assign one person to both village hall and the public works office to answer phones for emergencies during the furlough days, and public works staff will be called in for essential work such as plowing snow.

Village hall will also be closed the week after Christmas. Employees can either schedule vacation days for that time, or will be on unpaid furlough. Officials anticipate each employee will end up using at least one furlough day, and that the savings will be $3,700.

One employee has volunteered to go to part-time status for three months, saving another $5,000.

Village President Sean Michels said the village has frozen wages, raised employees' contributions for medical insurance $713 apiece, and taken other steps like cutting back on nonessential travel to trim costs.

"Eighty percent (of the budget) is personnel expense. So there is not a lot of other items you can cut," Michels said.

The furloughs do not apply to the village's 20 unionized police officers, but do apply to the chief and a police office assistant.

Village officials had asked the patrol officers' union to renegotiate their contract, but were refused. The contract, ratified in January, calls for annual cost-of-living adjustments of 3.25 percent.

The department is down three patrol officers and a sergeant, and those positions likely won't be filled, Michels said.

So far in 2009, the village has laid off four full-time workers, one part-time employee and eliminated three positions through attrition. The village is also considering laying off another worker Jan. 1.

In 2007, the village had the equivalent of 52.7 full-time, non-sworn workers. It now has about 40.

"I don't think anybody knew how deep this (the recession) was going," VanVooren said.