Call
it residency lite.
Springfield
firefighters have ratified a contract with the city that would require new
hires to live within city limits for 15 years. After that, they could live
wherever they choose.
“No
one should be disappointed, no one should be gleeful,” said Ward 7 Ald. Joe
McMenamin. “Government is the art of compromise.”
Mayor
Jim Langfelder agreed. The mayor has pushed for stricter residency requirements
for city workers so that new hires would be required to live within city limits
when they start employment.
“It’s
most definitely a compromise,” Langfelder said. “We did have some give-and-take
on that. … The new hires, they want that good quality job, they should be
willing to make that commitment to Springfield for 15 years.”
The
five-year deal, retroactive to 2016, when the prior contract expired, includes raises totaling 8 percent,
with 2 percent of the increases considered bonuses that would not be included
in pension calculations, Langfelder said. A final city council vote on the contract
is expected next month.
Langfelder
had made residency an issue in the 2015 election. In 2016, the city council in
a 6-4 vote approved a residency requirement for new hires. Most unions have
agreed to residency requirements for new hires, but the police union has successfully
fought residency, winning a 2017 arbitration decision that rejected a city
demand for residency for new hires.
According
to a 2015 report by the State
Journal-Register, 30 percent of city police officers lived outside city
limits in 2015 and 45 percent of firefighters lived outside Springfield that
year.
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jan 10-16, 2019.
