Excerpts from evanstonroundtable.com:

In September 2020, in the face of COVID-19 and the city’s budget, members of the Evanston Firefighters Association Local 742 union agreed to amend their collective bargaining agreement, foregoing salary increases instead of the 2.25% increases that had been negotiated for 2021 and 2022.

At the a recent council meeting, a recommendation was made that firefighters receive a one-time payment, a compensation for their sacrifice. The council approved the payment to firefighters for the income losses – using $494,059 for 105 employees from federal American Recovery Protection Act funds.

As part of the revised agreement in 2020, firefighters were able to retain their current operational deployment model, maintaining 26 firefighter per shift, “sufficient to ensure that companies responding to emergency calls had the staffing necessary to be effective and respond within the department’s average response time.”

The city saved at least $680,000 from the firefighters’ concessions in 2021 and 2022 and that the average member gave up approximately $6,500 in base pay compensation.

The city “has seen higher than expected revenue as economic activity continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. State income tax, building permits, real estate transfer tax, sales tax, and state use tax all show revenue higher than budgeted through mid-year 2021.”

In the 2020 negotiations, AFSCME Council 31, which represents employees in the public works department and the library, joined with the firefighters and agreed to forego wage increases after previously bargaining for increases.

However, the Evanston Police Department held out against agreeing to the 0% increase. The union noted that it had worked with the city in pre-COVID 2019 when officials expressed concern about future economic issues and had agreed to a 0% increase then.

Council members approved a series of other actions at the meeting, rewarding city employees and staff, drawing on reserves in the city’s General Fund. The council approved:

  • A retention “Thank You” bonus of $500 for all city employees;
  • A retention bonus of $2,500 for the non-union employees of the Evanston Police Department;
  • A 3% wage increase for all exempt employees of the city.