On Tuesday council will again visit the next garbage contract.  DGreport readers already know the options, but now staff has weighed in, recommending the existing program be kept in place for another three years.  This is a first reading (workshop) of that motion, and council is expected to vote next week on how to proceed.

The village survey made it crystal clear residents didn’t see anything broken, and didn’t want anything changed.  Massaging out the senior citizen responses from the survey did nothing to change that overwhelming response.

How will council vote?  Commissioner William Waldack has been clear from the start he will vote to keep the current system, and Commissioner Sean Durkin has been clear from the start he wants to see carts only.  While Mayor Sandack has repeatedly mentioned the fixed costs that must be addressed, he and the rest of council know the contract to extend the current system (with price hikes) covers those fixed costs and is profitable for Republic Services, Inc.

This week’s discussion should make the expected vote clearer.

The Motion is here.

Village Operation Center workers will see raises

In December of 2008, the Village Operation Center (VOC) employees voted to unionize and choose the Fraternal Order of Police as their exclusive bargaining agent. The unit is comprised of all full time operators. Staff has been negotiating a collective bargaining agreement since April of 2009. Staff has successfully negotiated a three-year agreement beginning May 1, 2010-April 30, 2013.

Tuesday council with a 6-1 vote approved a contract for the employees of the Village Operations Center VOC.  Commissioner Barnett stated he would vote against accepting the contract in light of the current economic conditions, and was the lone “NO” vote.  Commissioner Neustadt briefly voiced his support for the public employee contract. The rest of council had no comment beyond the “YES” vote approving what staff had presented.

Those economic conditions Barnett referred to, and the spotlight put on generous public employee pay and benefits, have been the source of running commentary by several council members including the mayor.  DGreport has run several posts about employee costs and how they are busting the budget and breaking the taxpayer’s collective back.  There is a general consensus among council members that the business and financing of government, of which roughly 75% of total costs are personnel costs, can’t continue as it has in the past.

The contract calls for 3-8% step increases each year.

All covered employees advance one “STEP” each village  fiscal  year,  which  begins May 1st.  One employee already at STEP 6 advances to STEP 7 in 2011 and 2012.

Most of the private sector has seen pay freezes and benefit cost increases.  While most of the ire at Springfield has been focused on pension, payroll bursts most municipal budgets.

The entire contract is here.

Police and fire union contracts are coming up for renewal next year.

Any emails sent on this topic will be printed in their entirety.

After the break, some other ideas that might help the village budget: 

Pay for the Ogden TIF preamble agreement with District 58 using Ogden TIF funds and report them in the annual TIF report. All taxing bodies had their chance to enter an agreement; it’s a requirement of TIF creation that other taxing bodies be notified of the intent, and they would have negotiated to enter into an agreement before the district formed just like 58.   In 2009 the annual required payment of $131,000 for the TIF district generated revenue-sharing was paid for out of the Real Estate Fund (226) a non-TIF fund.  The dollars will go up every year.  It’s long past time this annually repeating expense came off the General Fund ledger and goes into the TIF ledger where it properly belongs.  Amend or rider the agreement so that the payments come from the TIF district funds rather than general funds.

This could be a repeating annual savings starting at about $135,000 for FY2011 if the village does this.

The village has been paying this since 2001.  Those funds should be paid back; from the TIF increment back into the general fund.  Those ten years of payments total about $400,000 as a one-time revenue source.

Bill the CBD TIF for every penny spent from the General Fund. Some monies have been returned; there may still be General Obligation debt payments paid via Real Estate taxes that have not been properly restored to the general fund.  This includes re-combing the records for originating bond fees, early stage P&I payments that were budgeted from RE taxes, and employee expenses that were billed to the village that should have been billed to the TIF District.  Examples of employee expenses might include village time spent on the AOTG agreement, time spent by public works employees working inside the TIF district, and any other employee expenses directly related to CBD or Ogden Ave TIF District functions.

The village probably did not bill every hour into the TIF District budget, but it should have, to accurately account for the true cost of the district.  Council and staff set the precedent last year of billing hours to specific purposes.  The village might consider exploring budgeting and billing the TIF Districts for hours spent on the TIF’s.  This is tying costs to the source, and accounting accurately the cost of the TIF Districts.

Also in 2009 there was a one-time transfer of $200,000 from the Real Estate Fund (226).  That $200,000 can be restored to the General Fund at some point in time.

Will this force an extension of the CBD TIF District?  The current debt structure already guaranteed years ago that the CBD TIF would need to be extended when it expires.  There may be prohibitions against this; the Illinois TIF Statutes make clear only that all expenses have to be accounted for, it does not provide categories of acceptable or  unacceptable expenses, nor does it appear to prohibit correcting past accounting oversights.  It also provides that any surplus be redistributed to the various taxing bodies (65 ILCS 5/11-74.4-7).

Combine reserve funds. The Parking Fund currently projects a cash balance of $500,000.  The Real Estate Fund has a cash balance of around $250,000.  There’s more fiunds and more cash reserves.  The village now knows exactly what a “rainy day” looks like.  Run the numbers for separate reserve funds, create a new General Reserve Fund in the budget, roll them in at an appropriate level.  No policy change about using reserves, just combine them into one reserve fund.

There might be $200,000-250,000 freed up one time by doing this.

Continuation of the Municipal Buildings Fund as a pay forward construction fund for a new civic center. A new civic center will not happen unless budgeting is as tight as a drumhead.  One way is to forward-fund a percentage of the project to offset interest costs on the debt balance borrowed.  Every dollar saved up front directly reduces TIC by 40 cents on the dollar.

Painful?  Yes.

The village will have to make do with existing facilities for several years?  Yes.

Use the opportunity to show the shared pain with taxpayers.  Everyone gives in hard times.  The conventional wisdom is spread the cost over the life of the project by borrowing.  Fire Station #2 showed there were significant savings to be had by saving money up front, and also by already owning the land, both of which eliminated substantial interest payments.  A new civic center needs costs blunted as much as is practical.

Sharing common cost across multiple jurisdictions. John Schofield President of Downers Grove Coalition for Managed Redevelopment, forwarded the concept of cross-jurisdictional cost cooperation.  Vehicle maintenance is one just one example.

This is already beginning.  Westmont and DG will soon share Ops Center expenses and personnel.  DG went to the cheaper suburban FIAT rather than going it alone with a dedicated SWAT team.  We now share one Fire Station coverage area with Woodridge-Darien.  Exploring shared use of like purposes provides savings via economy of scale.  If all your kids eat the same cereal, do you buy them each a box of the same cereal, or one bigger cheaper box?  If everyone buys paper, and one body uses so much they get a better deal, why not share that savings?

The unions have to help. There are two key labor contracts coming in 2011: fire and police, the two biggest personnel expenses.  Consider the concept of using dollars instead of percentages in the two union contract negotiations coming up, and try to peg those dollars uniformly across the ranks.  A $500 raise instead of a 1% raise saves several thousands by avoiding higher salaries triggering higher increases.  Freezing the size of the steps is imperative for sustainability without excessive downsizing.  Consider opening the books to the unions and asking them to help find the money-it isn’t there, and sometimes that is best discovered by all parties.  Keeping jobs is better than eliminating them to make ends meet.

Some of these might work, none of these might work, but it’s certainly worth looking at them all.  If any council member wants, they can  respond   with   their own suggestions and ideas.  Any email responses from elected officials will go up as a comment.

At the last June council meeting Mayor Sandack referred to 4-5 resident comments on the village website regarding Long Term Financial Planning that starts on June 29th.

The lack of input may be from lack of information. This link will take you direct to a 15 page village summary report on the current financial state, and starting point for next year’s budget-and beyond.

Yes, this does have a direct impact on your taxes and your own budgets.  Yes, there will be a test.

Comments on any topic related to budget, spending, whatever can be directed to: lrfp@downers.us

That gives Illinois the infamous distinction of having the nation’s worst pension problem.  Only it’s not the state’s problem.  In a classic example of effluvium flowing downhill, it’s our problem.

There’s plenty of blame for both political parties; you can’t pin this tail on just a donkey.  “Big Jim” Thompson got the whole ball rolling with his idea of using next year’s revenue receipts to pay for this years spending deficits.  It’s one thing to use future revenues to pay for present day expenses, but you have to have the money now to pay for now.  Talk is cheap, whiskey costs money.  So where did the cash for now come from?  You guessed it, from the pension funds.  It worked great; an untapped, seemingly endless supply of money that could be refilled later so there wouldn’t be any problems.

Except one; once the General Assembly got a taste of endless money, they could not stop spending, and the funds never really got refilled.  Something for this, something for that; money for this voting group, money for that constituency; entitlements here, there, and everywhere.  Edgar slowed the spending frenzy, Ryan kicked it back into gear, Blagojavich put entitlement spending onto a crack-addled overdrive, and wham!  The state is now borrowing money to pay current pension obligations, making taxpayers pay $1.40 for each $1 dollar in pension funding, and state crack-head politicians are asking taxpayers for even more money than that.  For 30 years Illinois has ignored its’ pension obligations.  While municipalities every taxing body with qualifying personnel have been required to make the contributions, state politicians have frittered it away.

Illinois’ unfunded pension liability owed to the state’s five public employee retirement systems (through end of FY2009):

• The State Employee Retirement System (SERS) is 46.1% funded
• The Teachers’ Retirement Systems (TRS) is 56% funded
• The State Universities Retirement System (SURS) is 58.5%
• The Judges Retirement System (JRS) is 42%
• The General Assembly Retirement System (GARS) is 32%
• The Illinois Municipal Retirement Find (IMRF) is 100% funded.*

* The IMRF is managed independent from the state.

These total an unfunded liability of 65 cents on the dollar and is the worst of any state in the nation.  Now the state has delayed paying in for 2010 until 2011, when they will probably borrow the money to make the payment.

The problem isn’t that the pensions are too generous.  Yes, there has been abuse of the system.  D99’s excessive raises to former Superintendent David Eblen resulted in him being ridiculously overpaid making his pension payout spectacular.  Just for that the D99 board should have their budget keys taken away, they obviously don’t value a dollar, and don’t understand the concept of no free lunch.  Or worse, they understand and don’t give a rat’s ass.  At any rate, it’s a sad fact this was not an isolated or unique incident; it happened all over the state and it happened right here.

The reality is most pensions are not over inflated but the state never made the required contributions.  When faced with not enough money to provide services and fund pensions, the state cheaped out on pensions, and kept expanding way past the core services required of a state government.  Politicians get ahead in their world by solving problems, and in their world solving problems requires spending money.

Although Illinois has more government agencies than any other state, we rank 48th in total headcount of state employees, so it’s not the size of state government that is dragging us down.  Now, there’s also township government that is a popular target for waste, but to off that layer of government, it would require a referendum process of huge scope, being fought every inch of the way by those township governments themselves.

Neither are the costs of the system itself too high.  The weighted average of all five Illinois pension systems is about 9.1%.  The national average for state and local  government is 12.5%.  We’re below the national average.

I’ve talked about switching to defined contribution pensions, a 401K type plan for new hires.  Even that has higher costs to administer than defined benefit plans, according to the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.

According to the Investment Management Institute, the operating expense ratio for defined benefit plans averages 31 basis points (31 cents per $100 of assets); the average for defined contribution plans is three to six times higher, at 96 to 175 basis points. To put that in context of the Illinois pension systems, the administrative costs of a defined contribution system would in all likelihood cost taxpayers anywhere from $275 to $610 million more annually than the state’s current defined benefit systems.

Despite some beginning rumblings of accountability and the need to do something, currently there no solution in sight.  No one from either party in a position of power to do something about it is discussing it as a problem that must be solved, only pushed away for later.  Costs are increasing during down economic times due to bi-partisan cooperation for pension sweeteners authorized by the Illinois General Assembly; that means both sides are to blame, both party’s leadership has failed, and neither is doing anything about it except voting to delay doomsday, increase legalized vice, and blame each other while they sleep in the same bed.

So they want to raise our taxes so much to fix the pensions, right?  Wrong. Pensions are an un-addressed ticking time bomb, and the GA has left that bomb sitting squarely in the lap of every city and village, and every school district in Illinois.  Illinois public pension fund reserves have cratered due to budget raids, and also due to severe losses in market investments, ridiculously high management fees to those politically connected, and the escalating costs imposed by unfunded mandates authorized by the Illinois General  Assembly.

Those sweeteners and mandates have almost doubled the Village’s contributions for employee pensions over the last decade. Public employee contributions are capped at around 10% of their pay by the General Assembly (another sweetener), so the burden to make up the difference falls upon local taxpayers and utility rate-payers (to capture tax exempt property owners).  All the investment losses will start being replenished with the 2009 tax levy, which is collected on your 2010 property tax bill.  And yeah, they’re taking that money, but not paying it into the pensions.

Right from the start, it’s cold comfort but it could be worse for the village.  The State Universities Retirement System saw its assets decline nearly 28 percent in 2008.  The Teachers’ Retirement System, the state’s biggest pension, saw its portfolio drop 30 percent.  That’s a 58 and 99 problem that intrudes hugely into their budget picture over the next 5 years and more.  Let’s just say Martin and Eblen weren’t harbingers of the bad news; neither said word one of understanding a problem existed, as near as the records show.

Back to the village.  As required by State law, all municipal employees (police, fire, and all other personnel) are covered by three separate pension programs: Police pension, Fire Fighters pension, and the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF)

Police. In 2007, the actual contribution to the pension fund was $1,680,424.  At that time it was expected to climb to $2,048,000 in 2010, and up to $2,565,000 in 2013.

The 2010 budget this year revises the Police pension contribution upwards to $2,365,508, 15.5% higher than the estimate made two years ago, and up almost 41% from 2007.  2013 contributions within the 2010 budget are projected to be $2,555,783, lower than the 2013 projections within the 2007 budget.

Are pension obligations declining that the projected contributions are being revised downward?  No they are not, so the projection should likewise be raised upward.

Fire. In 2007, the actual contribution to the pension fund was $2,146,148.  At that time it was expected to climb to $2,437,682 in 2010, and up to $2,789,405 in 2013.

The 2010 budget this year revises the Fire pension contribution upwards to $2,559,952, 5% higher than the estimate made two years ago, and up over 19% from 2007.  2013 contributions within the 2010 budget are projected to be $ 2,728,950, lower than the 2013 projections within the 2007 budget.

Are pension obligations declining that the projected contributions are being revised downward?  No they are not, so the projection should likewise be raised upward.

Expecting pension contributions to drop for both Police and Fire means they expect pension payout demand to drop?  That doesn’t follow; if payroll bodies and/or dollars increase, what does follow is pension payout demands being higher, not lower.

What has changed is the state has lowered required contributions to those pension funds.  It eases some budgeting pinch, but not enough, and simply adds to the underfunding problem.

The mantra used to be that government and public sector workers get good benefits and job security in lieu of high salaries, but since 2004 at the latest that gap between public and private employee paychecks disappeared.  It’s hard to come by perfect comparisons, since government numbers for the private sector include lower-wage industries like retailing, which pull down the averages, but overall, public-sector workers get a pretty good deal. In 2004 average salary for a public worker was $49,275 compared with $34,461 for everyone else, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Since then, both pay and benefits have risen without pause, widening that gap.

Readers here at DGreport have been studying the budget.  Outsourcing alone won’t get it done because the three budget busters are personnel salaries, personnel pensions, and payments on bond debt.

We can’t change  pensions, and we’re locked in on paying back money we borrowed, so that leaves payroll.  Can the village cut salaries and take out some of the raise steps?  If we don’t at least reduce the raise steps by 10% minimum we are back at square one in two years of not having enough money to pay for everything.  Did this all happen because every public body went on a protracted effort to raise pay without sacrificing benefits or pensions?  That they had to stay competitive?  I attended plenty of meetings of most taxing bodies where that was exactly the point made, by a revolving cast of presenters over many years.  Well, now we’re competitive, and we’re broke, and not one public taxing body is talking about reducing that pay so we’re not broke.

The village has $8 million a year in debt payments for the next three years, then it drops to $5 million a year in debt payments-unless the village borrows more for contracts to engineering and construction firms for stormwater. For now, that’s the plan.

The village has $77 million in debt and we still haven’t addressed the causes of stormwater flooding; we’re still just fixing the resulting problems.

Fire and Police, and even the Library may have to reduce their budgets.  If it takes one, or two, or ten cycles of zero base line budgeting to accomplish that goal then it’s time to start.  As it is, those three government unit budgets have gone up each year, every year.

Taxes went up last year, and they may increase next year too.  Do local taxing bodies have any other choice?  Not unless they are willing to address payroll, pensions and debt…and they can’t address existing pensions and debt.

So far, the angst is palpable.  Council can raise every tax and fee, and hit the property tax bill, and next year lowered assessments start kicking back.  As assessments go down, tax bills will go up again, and everyone will wonder why.  Schools may be asking for PTELL exemptions to keep up with increases in personnel costs, or start playing the shell game of sloshing funds around and then moving what’s left (like new roofs and building repairs) into backdoor referendums so they can borrow the money now without asking taxpayers for an okay.  Nevermind there’s no sound way to repay $1.40 for every dollar borrowed at some later date.

This is not a problem that will get fixed this year.  Whatever budget gets approved by all local taxing bodies next cycle, it must not be the end of a continuing, continuous budget discussion.  The village comes closest to getting that type of continuous process, but both school boards have been forced to focus on money because of the state late-paying.

The surface has just been scratched  So far Band-Aids have been applied, but the patient needs major surgery, and the doctors still have no suitable set of tools to use.

Nah, just kidding, they got busy sinking taxpayers even deeper in the red with irresponsible lawmaking.

HB6041 Schools Funding

Do Scott O’Connell’s concerns about irresponsible spending have merit?  We may finally find out…

llinois is now almost nine months behind paying schools what they are supposed to.  That’s blowing holes in every school budget in Illinois.  The solution?  Let them borrow money and pile up debt just like the state, and put taxpayers on the hook for it without giving them any say.

The Illinois General Assembly got off their fat brains and passed a bill that basically allows schools to spend whatever money they want without asking the taxpayer via a binding referendum.  Now they can do what they should have been able to do always, use money where it’s needed most, but now they can also issue debt straight up via backdoor referendum with no voter approval or using the Life Safety clause as a sheep’s skin to cover the wolf debt they pass on to taxpayers.

HB6041 was written mainly by the bond counsel agencies that make their living underwriting school debt issues.  Now schools can issue lots of it, meaning bond counseling’s income stream just got potentially a lot bigger.  Sweet.  They had even stripped out the Public Notice requirement until the last minute, when someone had an anxiety attack of pseudo ethics.

Voting record for house and senate are here.

On the Senate vote Republican Kirk Dillard, to his credit, recognized a pile of debt-burden increasing offal when he smelled it and voted NO.  Republican Dan Cronin, our next county chairman (and self-proclaimed Mr. Education) took a pass with a NV (No Vote), not bothering to perform his elected duties and represent his constituents.

On the House side, Republicans Patti Bellock and Sandra Pihos both voted YES.

Don’t budget, don’t fund properly; instead just borrow, kick the can down the road and make it someone else’s even bigger problem to solve later.

HB 543 Agricultural Fair Act

Who hasn’t heard ad nauseum about Illinois public pension problems.  The state heard taxpayers and fixed the pension problem.  Yeah, just kidding again; they passed another bill that simply says they won’t make pension contributions this year.

There’s a $3.7 billion pension payment due this year but see, Illinois doesn’t want to make it because they already used that money for something else, and can’t come up with the cash.  Solution? Senate Democratic Majority Leader John Cullerton and House Democratic Majority Leader Mike Madigan say delay the payment until January, when it will be easier to either a) borrow the money or b) raise taxes to make it easier to borrow the money.

Here’s the voting.

In the House, Republicans Patti Bellock and Sandrah Pihos voted NO.  On the Senate side, Republicans Kirk Dillard and Dan Cronin voted NO.

Every time the state delays taking responsibility they raise pension cost obligations to taxpayers.  They’ve been doing this since “Big Jim” Thompson began raiding future tax receipts in the 80’s.  Blago made it the defacto standard to simply steal the money in broad daylight, but there are no clean hands here.  There’s still no plan for responsible budgeting either.

HB543 is another example of the venal use of shell bills.  It started out as a bill to fund agricultural fairs.  As with all shell bills, it was then amended to strip out everything and replace it with the real bill.  In this case, a bill to ignore require pension payments until January.  Talk about kicking the can down the road: there’s no pretense of being responsible here.

The village has added a page to its website explaining its share of residents’ property tax bills and linking to tax bill information presented by Assistant Village Manager Mike Baker at the May 4 council meeting.

The village also uploaded a video of Baker’s presentation to YouTube, which can be accessed by clicking here:  2009 Property Tax Bill Presentation

While the village has provided tax levy information in the past, this is the most extensive effort, said Doug Kozlowski, director of community relations.  “The tax bill presentation is “a continuation of the overall transparency we’ve tried to maintain as part of the long-range financial planning process.”

The village levies a specific dollar amount as opposed to a rate,  Kozlowski said. It accounts for about 10 percent of local property tax bills.

“We wanted to let people know that the decisions that impacted the tax bill were  made in a very strategic process and to let people know about the long-range financial planning recommendations that resulted in what they are seeing on their tax bill now,” he said. In addition to raising about $500,000 in new taxes, the village cut expenditures by $2.2 million, tapped reserves and took other strategic steps bridge its shortfall.

David Vaught, Governor Quinn’s budget director, announced Quinn’s intention of reducing income tax payments to municipalities in Illinois by 30%.

“You need to take a look and say OK, does everybody have skin in the game here?” Vaught said. “It just doesn’t make sense that the municipalities would get a pass.”

While there is no plan to fully fund the $4.1 billion in required state pension obligation, the state proposes refusing to distribute the normal 10% of state income tax receipts to local municipalities, creating a $300 million gain for the state.

For 2010, DG had budgeted for $3.75 million in state income tax revenue.  That budgeted number represents a grimly realistic decline of  almost 10% over 2009, and almost 19% from 2008.  If adopted by the state, DG stands to lose up to $1.125 million in revenues, blowing another hole in the financials.

On Wednesday Quinn plans a state address to broach this topic, along with another pitch for a large increase in the state income tax.

Anticipating the large turn out, the meeting was moved to the South High cafetorium and 20 minutes of comments allowed at the first reception of visitors, which is normally reserved for remarks on agenda items. There will be another, unabridged, opportunity for public comment at the March 15 meeting, during which the board is set to vote on the employment of Klamm and other teachers.

About a half-dozen parents and students, many wearing “Keep Klamm” stickers, offered heart-felt testimonials to Klamm’s dedication and effectiveness as a chemistry teacher and varsity tennis coach. The statements were part of a wide-ranging campaign on Klamm’s behalf, including meetings with school administrators and a Facebook group which numbers 1,150 members.

But a statement read by  Lois Graham, DGEA vice president at North,  carried potentially greater impact.  Graham, who was accompanied by Lisa Counter, the DGEA vice president at South, told the board the union has launched an inquiry into the Klamm situation and the larger issues it represents, specifically  “the clarity and consistency  of the current evaluation process  and how it is implemented.”

The decision by North administrators to deny Klamm tenure has prompted the DGEA to ask what it takes to be considered an excellent teacher in Disrict 99, Graham said. “What attributes of an excellent teacher do you consider to be most important?   What do you really want in a teacher?” (Read the full text of the DGEA statement here.)

In other business, the board responded to a potential future shortfall in state aid revenue by approving an increased student-teacher ration of 22:1 on a 5-2 vote with member Deborah Boyle and Bob Lemke voting against. The action will allow the district to cut five full-time equivalents resulting in a $300,000 savings.  Should more state funding becoming available “this would be at the top of our list to add back,” said Supt. Mark McDonald.

The board also approved fee increases for the 2010-11 school year, including a $25 hike for student parking, a $10 increase in the athletic participation fee and $5 increases in textbook, yearbook and non-athletic participation fees. Again, Boyle and Lemke voted against the measure.

District policy is to raise fees gradually rather than to implement period large increases, McDonald said, adding that the increases allow the district to increase revenue rather than decrease programs.

On the plus side, the district was able to negotiate a one-year bus contract at no increase in cost, as well as contracts for soda/water and food vending machines that will return a $15,000 more to the district.

The board also approved the district’s withdrawal from the Directions Alternative Program, which currently serves 20 to 24 at-risk freshman and sophomores, for a savings of $120,000.  Administrators had been disappointed with the outcomes, McDonald said. Students will be better served on-campus at North and South, the district said.

“I’m happy to report there was a minimum number who actually left employment with the village,” said Village Manager Dave Fieldman.

Only three full-time and four part-time employees actually left as a result of 2010 budget cuts, he said.  The others were absorbed “through a system of shifting and reassigning positions,” including some jobs that had been left vacant as a result of a village hiring freeze from April 2008 through 2009.

During the hiring freeze, the village filled only those openings necessary for public safety.

“Technically, we don’t have a hiring freeze in effect right now,” Fieldman said. “However, we are still focused on gaining efficiencies where possible.”

Fieldman kept the council apprised of the potential impact of any job cuts during the budgeting process. He also kept the staff informed.

“We share with staff the same way we share with the public,” Fieldman said. “We held staff meetings to get buy-in and support.”

Seeing the challenges faced by the village, many staffers suggested efficiencies and were flexible in their response to reassignments and retraining, Fieldman said.

The council authorized 2010 village staffing at 340.88 full-time equivalent positions, compared with 366.53 in 2009 and 374.78 in 2008.