VERO BEACH — Top city officials will pitch an early retirement bonus plan to their most seasoned employees over the next week in a last-ditch effort to avoid layoffs.
The Vero Beach City Council voted Thursday in a special meeting to allow the early retirement plan to go forward, with an amendment making charter officers ineligible for the package.
Faced with the challenge of cutting $300,000 from the personnel budget, the city proposed the idea of giving vested employees over the age of 55 a bonus of one month’s pay to retire.
“We have a budget meeting coming up and we have a $300,000 gap to close,” Councilman Ken Daige said. “I expect our management team to have that gap closed and you asked us for a tool to do it.”
This would be a one-time offer, to be taken prior to the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Public Works Director Monte Falls said the plan was a “more humane” way to reduce expenses than laying off workers. The goal is to eliminate about 10 positions and if layoffs become necessary, they would be done on a last-hired basis.
The positions vacated from retiring employees would be eliminated if possible and, if not, lower level employees in the department could be promoted and those positions could then be eliminated, according to City Manager Jim Gabbard.
The vote came down 4-1 with Councilman Brian Heady dissenting. Heady wanted to broaden the scope of the staff reductions the city is looking at.
His efforts to do so were shut down for lack of support from his fellow council members, who wished to limit the meeting to the single topic.
City budget workshops are scheduled for July 21, 22 and 23 in council chambers at City Hall. The preliminary budget is available online at www.covb.org.
Click here for more background on the early retirement plan.
