Suburb Lays Off 9 City Workers
YORKVILLE, Ill. (STMW) - Yorkville Mayor Valerie Burd called it Black Thursday.
The southwest suburban city laid off nine employees Thursday from a city staff already decimated by layoffs over the past few years.
"This is people's jobs," Burd said Friday. "It made me sick. Some of these people have been with the city a long time."
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Even though Burd said she considers a lot of those laid off as "essential," she and Yorkville Administrator Bart Olson made the move to head off a general fund deficit projected to be as high as $600,000 by the end of the 2011 fiscal year.
"Bart and I have been working on this for a couple of months, what to do about this deficit," she said.
Burd said the layoffs made this week will cut more than $500,000 from the budget and will go a long way to addressing the potential deficit. In addition to the layoffs, the city made Glory Spies, the community relations officer, part time.
No one could say for sure how the public will be affected by the layoffs. Spies is possibly the person with the most contact with the public. Burd said it is yet to be decided if Spies still will do the city newsletter.
Also laid off was Katie Skinner, a receptionist in the public works department. That means calls to public works will be routed through the main desk, so it could take people longer to reach that department.
Another person laid off, Sue Swithin, the superintendent of recreation, has been in charge of the recreation center.
Other layoffs included: LeAnn Kanan, a receptionist; Molly Batterson, executive assistant; Charlie Graff, Information Technology specialist; Greg Weber, GIS coordinator; Jen Woodrick, engineering administrative assistant; Mike Robinson, senior engineering technician; and Ron Diederich, director of support services in the police department.
There no layoffs of police officers or public works employees on the streets, although the city did terminate a contract it had with a retired police officer who was working with the department.
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