Job fringe benefits

The City pays 80% of each of two (2) Blue Cross/Blue Shield health plans. The quoted premiums are the employee’s share (20%) of the 2024-2025 monthly premium costs:

Available at full cost to the employee through Delta:

Dental

• Employee Only: $23.18
• Employee + One dependent: $46.35
• Family: $72.34

Vision

• Employee Only: $7.21
• Employee + Spouse: $14.05
• Employee + Children: $15.73
• Family: $22.72

Available through Chard Snyder, an employee may contribute up to $3,200 pre-tax to Health Care FSA and/or $5,000 to Dependent Care FSA.

An employee who is enrolled in the HSA health care plan may use their Health Care FSA for dental and vision costs, only.

The City pays the costs of two (2) life insurance policies for the employee:

• $20,000 policy
• $10,000 policy

The City provides an employee the opportunity to build a tax-free investment fund to pay for qualified medical expenses post-employment with the City to include, but not be limited to, insurance premiums, co-pays, prescriptions, and deductibles.

Employee contributions shall be made on the following schedule:

• After 4 years of service: ½% of employee’s pay
• After 8 years: 1% of employee’s pay
• After 12 years: 1 ½% of employee’s pay
• After 16 years: 2% of employee’s pay
• After 20 years: 2 ½% of employee’s pay
• After 25 years: 3% of employee’s pay
• A retiring employee will defer seventy-five (75) percent of unused sick leave, one hundred (100) percent of unused vacation time, and one hundred (100) percent of unused accumulated time due (compensatory time) into the city's adopted postemployment healthcare plan.
• Unused personal leave and accumulated sick time in excess of nine hundred sixty (960) hours will be put in the employee's postemployment healthcare plan account.
• Unused vacation time in excess of the respective employee’s carryover limits, at the end of the calendar year, must be put in the employee’s post-employment healthcare plan account.
• Employee contributions shall be made on a pre-tax basis.

Vacation

• After 1 year of continuous service: 80 Hours
• 10 to 19 years of continuous service: 120 Hours
• 20 or more years of continuous service: 160 Hours

Holidays

• New Year's Day
• Memorial Day
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Veterans Day
• Thanksgiving
• Friday after Thanksgiving
• Christmas Eve
• Christmas
• New Year's Eve

Sick

Accrues at eight (8) hours per month, to a maximum of 960 hours.

Personal

Sixteen (16) hours per year.

All full-time exempt and non-exempt employees, with the exception of full-time police officers and firefighters, receive the following longevity schedule added to the employee's base wage:

• After 5 years: 1%
• After 10 years: 2%
• After 15 years: 3%
• After 20 years: 4%

Full-time police officer and firefighters receive the following longevity schedule:

• After 4 years   - 1%
• After 8 years   - 2%
• After 12 years - 3%
• After 16 years - 4%
• After 20 years - 5%
• After 25 years - 6%

ILLINOIS MUNICIPAL RETIREMENT FUND (IMRF)

Most City employees participate in IMRF.  Police Officers and Firefighters participate in alternate pension funds (see below). If an employee's first participation date in IMRF or any Reciprocal System is January 1, 2011 or later, they are in Tier 2.

An employee will contribute 4.5% of their salary to their future IMRF pension:

• 3.75% for a regular plan benefit
• 0.75% for a surviving spouse pension

If they do not have an eligible surviving spouse when they retire, they can take their surviving spouse contributions as a lump sum refund or they can convert it into a separate lifelong pension payment. The City contributes a significant amount of funding to each employee’s IMRF pension, as well.

Learn more about IMRF

POLICE: Illinois Police Officers’ Pension Investment Fund (IPOPIF)

Public Act 101-0610, provided for the mandatory consolidation of the investment assets of the state's public safety pension funds into two investment funds; one for police officers (Article 3) and one for firefighters (Article 4). The law provides that assets and liabilities of local pension funds will remain under the ownership of each local participating pension board and that the pension fund assets are combined for investment purposes only.  For more information, visit https://www.ipopif.org/

FIRE:  Firefighters Pension Investment Fund (FPIF)

Illinois Pension Code (40 ILCS 5/4-101) created the Firefighters Pension Fund.  This fund is managed by the Firefighters Pension Investment Fund, whose mission is to create a scalable and sustainable investment fund that meets or exceeds the agreed-upon objectives and provides good outcomes for its members. Their key objective is to obtain long-term investment returns to provide retirement security for the stakeholders of the Fund.  For more information, visit https://ifpif.org/about-us/mission/

These benefits are optional to the employee, but receive no contribution by the City:

• AFLAC
• Legal Shield
• Pacific Life 457 plan
• IPPFA 457 plan
• Effingham Highway Credit Union