Job benefits

The City pays 80% of each of three (3) Blue Cross/Blue Shield health plans. The quoted premiums are the employee’s share (20%) of the 2023-2024 monthly premium costs:

Available at full cost to the employee through Delta. Monthly 2023-2024 premiums:

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 BPC Benefits-Ascensus, an employee may contribute up to $2,850 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 2 life insurance policies for the employee:

• $20,000 policy
• $10,000 policy

The City provides an employee the opportunity to build a taxfree investment fund to pay for medical qualified expenses postemployment 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
• Thanksgiving Day
• Memorial Day
• Friday after Thanksgiving Day
• Independence Day
• Christmas Eve
• Labor Day
• Christmas Day
• Veterans Day
• New Year's Eve Day

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 receive the following longevity bonus added to the employee's base wage as follows:

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

This position participates in IMRF. Most IMRF members are in the Regular Plan. If your first participation date in IMRF or any Reciprocal System (except for Judges' Retirement System and the General Assembly Retirement System) is January 1, 2011 or later, you are in Tier 2.

You contribute 4.5% of your salary to your future IMRF pension:

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

If you do not have an eligible surviving spouse when you retire, you can take your surviving spouse contributions as a lump sum refund or you can convert them 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

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