Elgin lays off six employees due to pandemic-related closures

With some facilities still closed 10 months after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city of Elgin has laid off six employees, including five from parks and recreation and cultural facilities, officials said.

Two employees were from the shuttered Eastside Recreation Center, which will remain closed until 2022. Two others are from the Centre of Elgin and one from the Hemmens Cultural Center. The sixth was an IT employee who was let go as part of a departmental reorganization. The layoffs took place Friday.

The cuts were forced by ongoing pandemic-related revenue declines. The parks and recreation department had already cut $1.4 million in costs as part of the 2021 budgeting process, including mothballing the Eastside Recreation Center and Lords Park Pool. Also, city department heads took a 10% pay cut, while other managers slashed their pay by 5%.

"We looked for every way to avoid this, but when you have employees working in facilities that haven't been open since the end of March, there's only so far you can go in continuing to justify that, and I can't do it, as much as I would like to," City Manager Rick Kozal said.

Kozal said the employees who were let go would receive a severance package of one month's salary and three months health benefits. They were also encouraged to reapply should future positions open.

Kozal also said the two new city staff positions being created that will focus on environmentally friendly practices and promoting and protecting human and civil rights would not add to the bottom line in terms of payroll after further reorganization and therefore did not factor in to the layoffs.