In a vote 6th Ward Alderman Wayne Allen said was “one of the harder votes council has faced,” Galesburg City Council members voted 4-3 to revise a portion of the city personnel policy that deals with severance pay.
Various aldermen referred to the issue as “pension spiking.” Employees had essentially banked sick and vacation pay to receive pay increases when retiring.
7th Ward Alderman Jeremy Karlin told council the issue had cost the city, because payouts are no longer paid out over time.
“Changes in the rules are such now that we have to pay that up front and information that we have been provided by the city administration is that in the past few years that has cost us $700,000 to $800,000.”
City Manager Todd Thompson says retiring employees will have to follow a new timing schedule when submitting for retirement.
The issue of family working within the same the department was also a part of policy change last night. Thompson tells WGIL the policy will stick and changes were language based.
“Rather than brother or sister I think we changed it to sibling and then we added spouse,” Thompson says. “So that really didn’t change the fundamental policy that it’s not allowed, it changed it to family.”
Complaints regarding the policy itself stem back to last year. Thompson adds that the language changes didn’t have bearing on that discussion and that changes remain compliant with the contract agreed upon with AFSCME.
