Belleville may furlough employees as coronavirus pandemic causes revenue losses
The economic slowdown prompted by the coronavirus pandemic has caused Belleville leaders to consider furloughs and layoffs of city employees.
The City Council is scheduled to go into a closed session Monday night to discuss potential furloughs and layoffs as the economic fallout from COVID-19 continues and businesses have been affected by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order.
Mayor Mark Eckert said the executive session is necessary because individual positions will be considered as part of a plan to save money by reducing the number of employees on the payroll. He said aldermen may vote on the issue on either Monday night or during another meeting later in the week.
The number of layoffs and the amount of revenue expected to be lost has not been announced.
Local governments and businesses across the metro-east have already announced layoffs and furloughs.
Fairview Heights has announced 126 mostly part-time employees have been placed on furlough because they worked at places like the city’s new recreation center that was closed as part of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order issued to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
Hospital Sisters Hospital System, the Springfield-based organization that owns St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in O’Fallon and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Breese and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Highland, said Thursday an unspecified number of employees have been placed on furloughs. And on Saturday, a U.S. Steel Corp. spokeswoman said about 700 layoffs are possible at the Granite City plant but the exact number has not been announced.
Belleville revenue
Eckert said he has met with his staff regulary on how to handle the expected drop in revenue from sources, including sales tax, income tax, fees and gaming machines.
About a quarter of the revenue for the city’s general fund, which pays for the day-to-day operations of the city, comes from sales-tax revenue.
The city uses most of its property-tax revenue to support pensions for police officers and firefighters.
“It’s very difficult to see where we could cut so much out of the budget that wouldn’t get into full-time positions in order to equalize the loss of revenue that we anticipate we’re going to feel in the next couple of months,” Eckert said.
“The tough thing about now is we’re to the point where we know we’re gonna probably have to make some tough decisions and nobody’s done anything wrong,” Eckert said. “We’re just going to be faced with dramatic loss of revenue. When you shut down the economy in our city as much as it’s been shut down for a two-month period and nobody has a crystal ball just how quickly it’s going to reinstate.”
Last month, the City Council froze the 2% pay raises nonunion employees were due to receive on May 1.
And as a show of solidarity, with those 55 employees, the city’s three elected officials — Eckert, City Clerk Jenny Gain Meyer and Treasurer Dean Hardt — have said they will not take the 2% pay raise they were expected to receive on May 1. These raises were originally set by an ordinance passed in 2016.
These moves are estimated to save the city $89,000.
Want to watch?
The City Council meeting at 7 p.m. Monday will be broadcast on Facebook Live on the city’s Facebook page at Welcome to Belleville.
The 16 aldermen will be allowed to participate via telephone to comply with the social distancing guidelines that ban groups of 10 or more people.
This story was originally published May 3, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
