By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington is going to leave its sick leave buyback program alone for now.
Alderman Amelia Buragas said she doesn’t want the city to spend money fighting the changed benefit in court.
“I’m not really terribly interested in become a legal test case on this,” Buragas said. “I think we should proceed cautiously.”
The benefit allowing employees to cash out their unpaid sick days before retiring has been exploited to spike the pensions of 16 employees in the past, leading to $1.3 million in accelerated payments being paid to the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund.
City Attorney Jeff Jurgens said about 250 employees are still eligible for the benefit and they’re well aware of possible changes.
“We already have some people who, just because this is being discussed, are planning their retirement,” Jurgens told the council Monday night.
City staff will continue weighing the pros and cons of potential changes.
The City of Springfield is being sued after its city council decided to force employees to take a lump sum payout on unused vacation days. That’s similar to what Bloomington was considering for its sick leave buyback program.
“If (the ruling) is favorable to the municipality, we’ll reevaluate,” Mayor Tari Renner said.
Springfield has been charged $3.5 million in accelerated payments.
In other action, the city council unanimously approved spending $986,000 to study the expansion of Hamilton Road from Bunn Street to Commerce Parkway.
The council voted 8-1 to adopt a resolution endorsing BN Advantage. Alderman Kevin Lower was the only vote against the resolution, citing differences he had with some of the ideas BN Advantage was proposing to drive economic development in the area.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].
