Naperville to outline legislative priorities

Before legislators head back to Springfield next week, Naperville officials want to drop a few bugs in their ears.

City council members will meet Tuesday, Jan. 18, to determine their legislative priorities with legislators expected to include state Sen. Tom Johnson and state representatives Darlene Senger, Mike Connelly and Mike Fortner.

Further pension reform, labor union arbitration and workers' compensation are likely to lead the conversation.

“In previous years, the city would devise a list based on topics the council was dealing with and we would head to Springfield and fight for whatever was on that list,” Assistant to the City Manager Dan DiSanto said. “We've since learned that instead of formulating our own goals, it's better to bring in the legislators and have a discussion about what's reasonable and likely before we make our priorities known.”

This year's goals, DiSanto said, will focus on helping the city regain control of the costs associated with municipal employees. Pension reform, the city's only legislative priority last year, also continues to be a hot topic.

“Last year we told them our only priority was pension reform because we wanted them to know we meant it,” DiSanto said. “And in the end we were very happy with the two bills that were signed into law by the governor truly reforming pensions for all future municipal employees,”

While those reforms, he said, have “stopped the bleeding,” they did not address the initial liability of unfunded and underfunded pensions.

“We've fixed the problem for the future, now it's time to undo the damage of the current system,” he said.

A DuPage Mayors and Managers proposal, supported by the city, includes a provision allowing public safety pension boards, like those for police officers and firefighters, to voluntarily invest in the statewide Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund and a study on the possibility of consolidating the more than 400 police and fire pension funds in Illinois to a single fund to cut administrative costs.

Council members also are expected to decide whether to have lawmakers attempt reforms for how labor disputes with fire and police unions are decided; a move aimed at preventing the situation the council faced late last year when it agreed to a 3 percent raise for police and then laid off six officers.

The likely scenario, DiSanto said, would be for the city to push for amendments to state law requiring arbitrators to consider the economic conditions of the city when making labor contract decisions.

“Interest on this topic was certainly renewed based on the city's recent police union negotiations but raising the level of importance of the city's financial state in interest-based bargaining was something we submitted two years ago and we were quickly shooed away,” DiSanto said. “We need to force the arbiters to look at the municipality's ability to pay wage increases because if the city can't afford the increase, the result is layoffs and that is not something we want to go through again.”

Measures aimed at decreasing fraud and limiting the definition of what constitutes a legitimate workers' compensation claim also will be discussed.

Also on the list is an extension of the Wireless Emergency Telephone Safety Act, which expires in 2013. The law levies a surcharge on cell phone carriers that nets Naperville roughly $2 million a year used to offset the cost of providing the city's 911 service to cellular users.

Senger said the lawmakers had been made aware of the city's intentions and said she's optimistic the priorities will be addressed because “Naperville, when it comes to their priorities, fall right into line with most other municipalities. Despite that, Senger said, she appreciates the meeting format that essentially gives lawmakers a road map to the city's desires.

“It helps me with my vote so when something's before me and I don't have the time, which many times we don't, to understand all the details, at least I know where Naperville stands,” Senger said. “It gives me a firsthand understanding of where they are.”

The council will discuss their legislative priorities from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, just before the scheduled city council meeting.

The final list will then be approved at the Feb. 1 council meeting.

Connelly, Fortner and Johnson did not return messages left at their Springfield offices.