Coronavirus causes Belleville to cut or furlough 56, including some first responders
The Belleville City Council on Friday unanimously voted to either lay off or furlough 56 public employees, including two police officers and four firefighters, because of an expected shortfall in revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“This has been a very difficult week for department heads — weeks — and for all of us,” Mayor Mark Eckert said as the special meeting ended.
“It was not an easy vote and I thank all of you for your sincere deliberations,” he told the aldermen.
The jobs reduction is expected to save the city about $700,000 and other measures are expected to yield $300,000 in saving for a total of $1 million, Eckert said after the meeting.
Eckert said the city needed to consider furloughs and layoffs because of the expected drop in revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic linked to the deaths of over 3,200 people in Illinois.
Most of the employees will stop work on May 16 until further notice but some employees will stop in June.
The actions affect multiple departments and both union and nonunion positions.
Along with the police and fire departments, employees in marketing, public works, parks, housing inspections, library, sewer bill collections and economic development were affected the decision.
Aldermen discussed the issue in a closed meeting for about an hour on Friday and on Monday, the council discussed the issue for about 80 minutes.
Businesses that generate sales tax revenue for the city and state have had to close or reduce operations since March as part of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order issued to reduce the number of COVID-19 patients.
The largest single source of revenue for the city’s day-to-day operations comes from sales tax revenue.
Gaming revenues, income tax revenue and fees are also sources of revenue affected by the pandemic.
Last round of major layoffs occurred in Great Recession
“I’m extremely sad to have to deliver this message today,” Eckert said. “These people were good workers. They’ve done nothing wrong.”
The last time Belleville had a significant number of layoffs occurred about 10 years ago during the Great Recession when the city endured a reduction in revenue.
Cuts during a pandemic, however, is new territory for the city, Eckert said.
“What we don’t know about this is we don’t know about some of the residual effects or how long is it really going to go on,” Eckert said. “Is it going to spike again in the fall? There’s so many unknowns with this.
“It’s just really a puzzle how to judge this thing.”
When the year began, the nation’s economy was growing, but Eckert said the drop in business since the pandemic began has been “mind boggling.”
Most of the job losses were borne by employees who have low seniority or were in positions directly affected by measures taken to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
For example, the city’s two library buildings have been closed since March and summer programming with the Parks & Recreation Department has been canceled.
Last month, the City Council froze 2% pay increases that 55 nonunion employees were due to receive on May 1. And as a show of solidarity, the city’s three elected officials — Eckert, City Clerk Jenny Gain Meyer and Treasurer Dean Hardt — have said they would 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.
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 2:52 PM.
