In an effort to help balance next year’s budget, the Aurora City Council has approved a plan that allows certain city employees to get eight week’s pay and benefits in exchange for leaving their job.
Officials have been saying for months
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that the city’s 2026 budget, which is set to be released publicly for the first time this week, is facing a significant deficit. Earlier in the budget process, the projected difference between revenue and expenses was said to be roughly $30 million, not taking into account new requests from departments or certain potential pay increases.The “2025 Voluntary Reduction In Force Incentive Plan” approved by City Council at a meeting on Tuesday looks to lower that budget deficit, which Mayor John Laesch said at the meeting is now down to around $2.5 million, and minimize the impact of possible layoffs. Staffing takes up a vast majority of the city’s general fund, and since 2017, staffing levels have increased by roughly 30%, officials previously said.
The plan won’t require any extra funds, city officials have said, since all positions were already budgeted for this year.
Employees are eligible to receive the eight weeks of severance pay and benefits in exchange for leaving their job if they have been working at the city for at least six months, are not in the process of being fired, have not already announced their intention to leave their job and submit an application by Oct. 31, according to a copy of the plan.
The city’s intention is to allow as many eligible employees to participate as possible, the plan says, but city officials can deny an employee’s application to participate in the plan if them leaving would negatively impact city operations or would mean the city needs to hire additional employees.
“For example, an otherwise eligible employee may be denied participation based on certain skills, certifications, knowledge or abilities which the city values highly,” the plan reads.
City employees in unions will only be eligible to participate in the plan if their union accepts the plan, city officials have said.
Some aldermen asked if the vote could be delayed until after city staff met individually with each union about the plan, but staff said that the unions first wanted to know for sure what the plan would be. According to Laesch, Aurora City Council approval was needed before the unions could consider it.
The City Council voted 8-3 to approve the plan. Voting against were Alds. Jonathan Nunez, 4th Ward; Patty Smith, 8th Ward; and Shweta Baid, 10th Ward.
Ald. Will White, at-large, wasn’t at the meeting so didn’t cast a vote.
Smith said the thought of removing employees is “very difficult for us, and very heartfelt as well.” She understands why the city would want to go through the voluntary plan, she said, but her fear is that it will lead the administration into cutting employees if not enough of them take the offer.
When Smith asked what would be done in that situation, city staff said it was an “ongoing discussion” because of some unknowns. Layoffs are possible, staff said in response to one of Smith’s follow-up questions, but Laesch said that the city would try to provide as soft of a landing as possible.
And, staffing is the last place departments have looked for cuts, Laesch said. Previously, officials have said that departments were asked to find cuts equal to 20% of their budget, though the potential cuts were not set in stone and were used more as an exercise.
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 City Council in August that the current financial situation is one of the most serious ever faced by the city.
Many revenue streams were actually doing well, he previously said, 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, so the “fundamental financial structure of the city … does not work as it is currently set up,” Caputo said at the time.
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.
Officials have worked to lower that deficit to $2.5 million in the current version of the proposed 2026 budget, Laesch said Tuesday, and any more cuts would probably impact city services “in a very severe way,” like streets not being plowed.
That now-smaller deficit will likely be covered by budget carryovers, increased revenue from the new Hollywood Casino Aurora set to open next year, property sales or, in the worst case, funds that would otherwise be set aside for capital projects, according to Laesch.
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