Yorkville Lays Off 4 City Employees

Yorkville leaders hope to save the city about $120,000 a year by laying off four employees and instead using consultants for engineering services in the future.

“It was a tough decision, because they were all good employees,” Mayor Gary Golinski said Wednesday morning in an email. “The move was strictly a cost-saving measure.  We owe it to our residents to continue to find ways to provide services at a lower cost.”

The decision affected City Engineer Joe Wywrot, Civil Engineer Jackie Dearborn, Senior Engineering Technician Darrell Busch and Building Code Official Paul Zabel.

Wywrot had been working full-time for the city since May 1996 and, as of April 27, was among the city’s highest paid employees, making $47.60 an hour, according to information Yorkville Patch obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Dearborn joined the city in September 2007, Busch in May 2004 and Zabel in August 2009.

Yorkville had budgeted about $300,000 for engineering services but expects to only spend $180,000 by outsourcing the services to Engineering Enterprises Inc., the mayor said. Oswego, Sugar Grove and Montgomery also outsource their engineering services, according to Golinski.

“Our current financial situation will not allow us to continue running the large deficits that we've seen over the last four years,” Golinski said. “We will continue to be vigilant in looking at every aspect of our city's operations to ensure we are providing services in the most cost-effective manner possible.”

The move comes about six months after then-Mayor Valerie Burd laid off nine employees Dec. 2. Those cuts included the superintendent of recreation, the director of support services for police, the geographic information system coordinator and several receptionists.

Since then, the community relations officer, who made $31.25 an hour, has left and Police Sgt. Barry Groesch, who made $35.69 an hour, retired.

Engineering services are paid for using the city’s general fund, which is the largest operating budget fund. The reserves for that fund eroded from $1.2 million in April 2009 to a negative balance of $492,939 in April 2010 and a projected negative balance of $505,246 in April 2011, according to the city’s most recent budget.

The city’s goal is to have between 15 and 25 percent of a fund’s operating expenses saved as fund balance reserves, Golinski said.

This year’s budget includes $10.7 million in expenses for the general fund, so the target fund balance would be $1.6 million to $2.68 million. The budget projects a fund balance of $763,882 in April 2012.