By: Diane Benjamin
At tonight’s City Council meeting ratification of a contract for Sergeant and Lieutenants is on the consent agenda.
They will be getting retroactive raises back to May 1, 2017:
PDF page 92: http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=16030
PDF page 142 shows the previous contract wage increases were 1.5%.
PDF page 149 still has Sick Leave Buy Back!
See PDF page 154 for a HUGE problem:
The City pays 75% of the premium not only for the employee, but the entire family!
Does your employer pay 75% for your family?
Look at the 2017 Total Compensation report: http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=12646
Many employees are costing more than $20,000 a year just for insurance with another $10,000+ for a pension contribution.
Top that off with accumulating sick days and it’s obvious the City exists for City employees – not you.
The employees compensation report included this note on pensions: (click to enlarge)
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Diane, Under the Downstate Police and Fire Pension systems, employees may not use any sick time acquired to increase their pensions. The pension is based only on what the regular wages are on the last day of employment. The only pensions that get spiked are those for non-contract employees who are given generous raises shortly before the retire. This can not happen to Officers, Sergeants, or Lieutenants. The sick time buyout in this situation is still generous but it goes into a retiree health savings plan.
Thanks for the clarification! It still amounts to a lot of money but it did get reduced for employees hired after February 2016.
I wonder how Tari and the City Council plan on paying for all of this with a declining tax base. Salaries and benefits for our city employees, yes of course. But stop the sick day banking and pension spiking! It’s obnoxious! When private companies fall on hard times, they decrease benefits or “shop around” for more competitive rates or better buys. Our City government doesn’t factor in the current and future local economy, which is a disaster.
Contracts have locked them in for years, legal has tied their hands.
So does that mean a future non-communist mayor and council cannot change these salaries and benefits, due to the contract?
Not until they need renegotiated.
Pension Spiking, resulting in Accelerated Payments, is from those employees who are enrolled in IMRF which is a retirement fund not a pension. The Police & Fire can buy back their sick leave but the amount is not applied to the pension payout. Pension spiking is done by all other department personnel enrolled in IMRF.
I corrected the story. They still get the bucks put in a health savings account, just not spiked.
I’d say the Police & Fire personnel have more integrity.
I heard that HR is reviewing health insurance coverage for spouses. If the spouse is covered at their place of employment, they will no longer be covered under the City employee policy. This change may be in place now or have to work its way through the contract process, I’m not sure.
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It takes affect 2019. Saving the city 300,000
How many of the unions are involved?
I only know of local 699. That’s a lot of savings from one bargaining unit
It’s a good start, but Bloomington has a lot of unions.