By Robert Kelly
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — The East St. Louis Financial Advisory Authority on Monday rejected the city’s plan to lay off 11 firefighters and leave two other firefighter jobs unfilled.
Mayor Alvin Parks Jr. had contended that the layoffs were needed to help close a nearly $2.9 million shortfall and balance the city’s budget by the end of this year.
But the state-appointed Financial Advisory Authority voted 3-0 Monday to reject the layoff plan.
Patrice Rencher, executive director of the advisory authority, told the authority members that the plan “is in breach of the collective bargaining agreement” between the city and its firefighters. The agreement calls for maintaining a force of 58 firefighters, she said.
She also told the authority members that a city plan to borrow from the East St. Louis tax-increment financing fund to help balance the budget appeared to violate Illinois laws on how such funds may be used. TIF funds basically are set aside for economic development projects.
The authority then voted 3-0 against the city’s borrowing TIF funds.
Parks said after the authority’s meeting that he was unsure if the city had any legal recourse to appeal the authority’s actions.
The state has given the Financial Advisory Authority broad powers to oversee spending in East St. Louis. The authority was created by the Legislature in 1990 when the city was approaching bankruptcy. It continues as a watchdog agency.
Parks said he would ask the City Council to reconsider furloughs for nonunion city employees; the council rejected that idea before proposing the layoff plan for firefighters.
He said he hoped to call a special City Council meeting this week to discuss the budget crisis. “Furloughs are on the table,” he said. “Everything is on the table.”
Meanwhile, Parks said he would endorse all of his city expense checks back to the city, at least until the end of the year, “in light of the sacrifices being made by so many city employees.”
Parks previously announced layoffs of three nonunion employees who help oversee the city’s TIF projects; two vacant positions in the regulatory and personnel departments will be eliminated.
Seven East St. Louis police officers were laid off in April because of the budget crunch. One of those has been called back, Parks said.
The city has an annual general fund budget of about $22 million. Revenue this year has been down, Parks said. For example, income from the Casino Queen is running about $900,000 below projections, he said.
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