Kane County Health Department employees will be getting raises, after the county board recently approved a new collective bargaining agreement for the department that extends through 2027.
The Health Department’s most recent collective bargaining agreement expired on Nov. 30, 2024, per the measure authorizing the new contract that was approved on Tuesday. That means the new contract will extend retroactively from Dec. 1, 2024, through Nov. 30, 2027.
The new agreement also includes retroactive raises for Kane County Health Department employees.
Effective Dec. 1, 2024, employees who were on the payroll as of the day the collective bargaining agreement was ratified are to receive a retroactive increase in their base pay. That will amount to either a 3% across-the-board increase, or an upward adjustment to the department’s new revised minimum hourly amounts — $17 per hour for administrative assistants, $27.50 for public health nurses, $25 for environmental health positions, $25 for employees working in communicable diseases and $33 for epidemiologists.
From there, effective Dec. 1, 2025, each employee who was on the payroll as of that date will get a 3% raise, per documents included in Tuesday’s meeting agenda. Health Department employees will get another 3% raise starting on Dec. 1, 2026.
At a Kane County Board Finance Committee meeting in January, Kane County Finance Director Kathleen Hopkinson said the impact of the raises was around $120,000 for the first year, and around $70,000 for the two years following.
Michael Isaacson, executive director of the Kane County Health Department, noted that, since the contract extends retroactively, department employees who didn’t receive a raise at the time will receive backpay.
The measure was approved by the full board Tuesday as part of the meeting’s consent agenda.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
