Elmhurst Hiring Freeze Keeps Cop And Fire Jobs Vacant

ELMHURST, IL — The Elmhurst city manager imposed a hiring freeze in March because of the expected drop in tax money as a result of the pandemic.

The freeze has resulted in two firefighter and two police officer positions being held vacant, according to a city memo.

Asked about the hiring freeze, city spokeswoman Kasssondra Schref said in an email Monday, "The City continues to watch revenues and will determine if the hiring freeze will continue into 2021."

If the police and fire jobs are kept open, it would save about $440,000 over a year, including all benefits, a city spreadsheet shows. These costs assume a starting salary of $75,000 for an officer and $74,000 for a firefighter.

On Oct. 9, Thomas Trosien, the city's finance director, wrote a memo about the impact of the freeze on the police and fire departments.

The police department is not only down two officers, but also has four patrol officers on leave "for various reasons," according to the memo. At a recent forum, Police Chief Michael Ruth said his department had 66 certified officers and that it was adequately staffed, even with the vacancies.

Helping offset the reduction in officers, the department's two school resource officers were moved to patrol after the local school district ended in-person classes last spring, the memo said.

Also, the department temporarily disbanded the traffic unit, with two officers from the unit moving to regular patrol. The city stressed that officers can still perform traffic-related services on regular patrol.

"As such, the amount of overtime incurred has fluctuated as these four officer have assisted with the impact of the two sworn vacancies and our patrol officers who are on leave," the memo said.

In the fire department, the two vacant positions were assigned to separate shifts to offset the effect.

The vacancies are filled each day and have no negative impact on the safety or response of the fire department, Trosien said in the memo.