No September Furlough For City Workers: City Manager

City of Evanston employees will not be forced to take a furlough day in September, which was previously mentioned as a possibility to help make up for what the city would lose in a new state budget.

“I have decided not to ask the City Council to approve a furlough day in September,” City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz wrote in an email to city staff last week.

Bobkiewicz said that while the city budget remains in “good shape,” talks regarding a state budget are not making progress.

Related on Patch: City Employees Could Be Asked To Take Furloughs

“There are no good signs in Springfield as to the progress of a State Budget,” said Bobkiewicz, who accompanied Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl to Springfield last week. “There was a general sense that no progress will be made anytime soon.”

Saving money from a one day furlough would provide a cushion to whatever the State does to the City of Evanston, but Bobkiewicz has “no idea if it would help a little or a lot.”

“It is not worth impacting your finances under these circumstances,” he said.

A December furlough day and other cost-saving measures remain possibilities depending on the outcomes at the Capitol.