The city of Aurora is considering voluntary staffing cuts to help balance the 2026 budget, which is currently being developed and at one point had a roughly $30 million deficit.
The “2025 Voluntary Reduction In Force Incentive Plan” currently being considered would offer eligible employees two months of pay and benefits if they agree to leave their job at the city. That’s according to Chief of Staff Shannon Cameron, who gave a short presentation about the potential plan at a specially-called Aurora City Council meeting on Thursday.
The plan was only discussed at that meeting, and the Aurora City Council did not formally vote. Cameron said the plan is expected to formally come before the Aurora City Council for approval on Oct. 14, which is the next regularly-scheduled meeting.
Aurora’s budget crisis is one of the most serious it has ever faced, city staff have said.
In late August, officials said the 2026 budget’s general fund had a $29.7 million deficit at that point in the budgeting process. That figure did not include the additional $10.3 million requested by departments as a part of the budget process, any cost of living increases for non-union employees’ pay or any increases to contracts with various unions that are currently under negotiation.
Brian Caputo, who previously served as the city’s finance director and recently rejoined the city as director of fiscal integrity and government operations, told the Aurora City Council last month that many revenue streams were actually doing well, but expenses have outpaced revenue. Past budgets had been balanced by moving money typically set aside for long-term needs like insurance and capital projects into the city’s main operating fund, called the general fund, he said.
What that means is that the “fundamental financial structure of the city … does not work as it is currently set up,” Caputo said at the time.
The planned 2025 Voluntary Reduction In Force Incentive Plan is the city’s latest step to balance next year’s budget. Staffing takes up a vast majority of the city’s general fund, and since 2017, staffing levels have increased by roughly 30%, officials have previously said.
The decision is a very difficult one because city staff are highly valued, make a huge difference in services the city provides and many have served for decades, Cameron said at the meeting on Thursday.
“We want to try to provide as much dignity as we can, allow people some soft landing,” she said of those who decide to take advantage of the plan and leave their city role.
Since all of the positions were budgeted for 2025, Cameron said the plan wouldn’t actually require any additional funds except for paying out employees’ paid time off, which the city would need to pay anyway if a person were to choose to leave at any time.
Before the plan can be finalized, it still needs to be discussed with the city’s various employee unions, according to Cameron. If it is then approved by the Aurora City Council, each union can individually decide to accept or deny the plan, she said.
A staff report about the potential plan said its purpose is to lower the budget deficit and to minimize the impact of possible layoffs. Each of the city’s departments have been asked to come up with cuts equaling 20% of its total budget, though those cuts are not set in stone, Cameron said at the Thursday meeting.
According to Mayor John Laesch, the 20% number is actually more than the city needs to cut but is being used more as an exercise.
Amid other questions about the plan and departments’ 20% cuts list, many aldermen pushed back against deep cuts to public safety departments. Laesch said his administration is looking at what the city needs as opposed to what is just nice to have, and everyone understands public safety is a necessity.
“We’re going to try and do what we can in other departments first before we reach public safety,” he said.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
