Kane County may be forced to furlough employees
Kane County officials are hoping new plans to encourage employees to quit or retire will be the long-term answer to its budget woes, but even the leader of the committee tasked with slashing $3.8 million from this year's budget recognizes furloughs and unpaid holidays might be the only answer for the immediate problem.
The budget task force directed county staff Monday to develop a plan to encourage up to a dozen sheriff's officers to take early retirement. A separate plan will be created as an offering to all the other county employees to encourage them to voluntarily quit their jobs. The plans will involve the ability to keep the insurance plan the employees receive through the county at a reduced cost or with the county contributing some portion of the premium for a limited time. There will also be some form of a payout for sick time, which may be beyond what sheriff's officers are currently able to cash in right now. The amount of savings the plans will generate will hinge on the number of employees who take the offer. The expectation is that only 5 percent of eligible employees in either offering may choose to leave.
The county projects a savings of about $1 million a year if everything goes as planned. However, the current fiscal year is already half over. The savings for the current fiscal year, which is $3.8 million in the hole, diminish with each day that the employees who will take the offering stay on the payroll.
The task force will meet again when staff is finished working out the details of the offerings. Chairman Mike Kenyon, of South Elgin, said the committee has a lot more work to do. After the meeting, Kenyon said the retirements and voluntary terminations are the easy part of what's to come, including potentially contentious negotiations with union employees.
"This is the painless way," Kenyon said. "The painful way is furloughs and layoffs. The decision (for the remaining employees) is going to be do you want a furlough, or do you want 10 percent of you laid off?"