By: Diane Benjamin
https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/departments/human-resources/benefits-at-a-glance
Bloomington has job openings: https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/departments/human-resources/join-the-team
Bloomington Employee Benefits – the rest of the story
Okay but how do you expect the city to hire qualified, competent employees without a competitive benefits package?
Competitive or overly generous
A lot of corporate jobs offer a lot more than this, so it’s honestly barely competitive and it’s definitely not overly generous
Lavish pensions were started because government paid less. No longer true.
HR, HCM and systems/workflows have gone down a terrible road and incentivizing at taxpayer expense and the whole comp model used by county, state and some private orgs is very poorly implemented and executed. Let’s all work for county, state!!! Attract the best and the brightest using scorecards and rules engines and systems and data that lack integrity.
Generous and welcoming “the mantra” and those implementing it all don’t even understand the backend systems, abuses of data/business rules and exploit to taxpayers this all causes.
A shame.
If someone requires a whole bunch of freebees just to get hired I wouldn’t hire them. This competitive bs is one of the reasons we as taxpayers are in the trouble that we are in.
In my world you hire someone with demonstrated good abilities at an entry level of pay, with good performance you can expect a pay raise depending on your level of performance. With poor work you can expect no pay increase and possibly face some corrective action that could lead to termination.
How do you attract qualified individuals you sure as hell don’t promise them the world!
Come work for me and I will give you a paycheck for work completed continue to do acceptable work and I will reward you with pay raises and extras such as more vacation time off.
Nothing worse than giving a prospective employee the impression that they are irreplaceable.
Ever wonder how a new hire city manager can come in and immediately make the exact same pay as the tenure city manager that is retiring? And then that city manager retires leaving the city in $100 million of debt with a lucrative pension. But we have to do that to attract the best, I don’t buy it!
In 5 years, 3 weeks off, during that time 13 days holiday that time per year, 8 hours sick leave time 60 months = 480 hours or 60 days. So after 5 years one can feasible be paid 17.6 weeks time off which is 1/3 of the year if my math is right. My God! After 5 years, take one third of the year off! No, corporate does NOT pay that unless you are a very high rank. Entry level SF no way. My tax money paying these chumps so thay can feasibly take a 1/3 of the year off if they choose?!? Outrageous! Not to mention how inept many of the city workers are. How much they stand around, how much I see them on their cell phones, how often they can’t answer a question and how often you have to wait for an answer, like these people in whole should have it so good. City workers now disgust me. Grifters!
It could be worse. They could apply DEI standards.
They do
How qualified and competent does one need to be to rake leaves, clean out sewer drains, water plants, answer the phone, be a janitor, be a basic clerk, etc. Need a college degree? Nope. Need a high school education or equivalent? Maybe, not sure. Unskilled workers welcome. Didn’t Earn It, welcome. Visibly support the Constitution or rule of law, no thanks. Undocumented. We’lll find a way. HR ANALYST from above only four letters fit. Guess which ones.
This really helped me understand it better. Thank you!!
This is very similar to ISU. And I would say pretty competitive if not lower than some private sector jobs. Also guessing those that are commenting don’t have kids in school. Or kids that get sick a lot. My sick time has become time off for my kids doctor’s appointments or when they are sick. Vacation time and personal days for when the kids don’t have school. Do you know how many days a year kids don’t have school? Yes, I could pay to send them to some daycare, but also have you priced daycare? I think you are a bit off on this one Diane.
So many companies have also gone to PTO (paid time off.) They don’t differentiate between sick, vacation, or personal time. You just get X hours per month/year, etc. Also, those of us at ISU don’t get Veteran’s Day or Columbus Day, etc. It is a trade off that we get extra days at Christmas time, but some of these days are days kids are not in school and we are not off. Benefit time has to be used.
ISU is government too.
In addition all these people get lavish retirements. Does the private sector get guaranteed salary for life?
Well aware the ISU is government too. I wouldn’t say we get “lavish” retirement. We are also at the whim of whomever is current administration. Some of us have gone years without raises. We get exemplary annual reviews, but no raises because there “isn’t enough money in the budget.” Our salaries are well below what we could make in the private sector. Just like teachers, those of us who choose to work for the government know the pros and also the very large cons.
Also, our pensions are all we get. No stock options, or yearly bonuses or profit sharing, or social security. I worked private sector for more than 20 years before going to ISU. And up until recent legislation, I would have had decrease in my annuity if I also drew social security.
And just for the record, when the President of the University states no one is getting raises, this is an absolutely false statement. All of the unions ( we now have 20 on campus) have raises built into their contracts. Those of us that are non-union are the only ones not getting a raise. We have janitors making more money that salaried office staff. Government work is not the golden goose that most portray it to be.
I bet your pension is more than SS