Village Holds ‘Bargaining Impact Session’ With Union Custodial Workers

As the Oak Lawn Village Board continues to figure out how to plug a deficit in the 2014 budget, village officials have proposed more cost-cutting initiatives involving the Oak Lawn’s union custodial and maintenance workers.

At a budget planning session earlier this month, Oak Lawn's village treasure Pat O'Donnell said the village needed to start paying unfunded pension liabilities or risk having its share of state sales and income tax revenue diverted beginning in 2016.

Earlier this month, the Oak Lawn Village Board was presented with a proposed budget, in which Oak Lawn’s deficit had been whittled down to $4.071 million. State laws require Illinois municipalities to pass balanced budgets.

The village issued a “request for proposals” for a private vendor to take over custodial services at “four to five” Oak Lawn village facilities on Nov. 15.

The proposed cost-cutting, outsourcing measure affects the village’s custodial and maintenance staff who are members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150.

According to the village’s “RFP,” sealed bids from contractors are to be opened on this morning, Monday, Nov. 25.

Oak Lawn Village Manager Larry Deetjen confirmed that management, including public works director Steve Barrett, held a “bargaining impact session” with Local 150 representatives to “appraise them of the initiative” last week.

“We had a very productive meeting as we always have had with Local 150 Leadership,” Deetjen said by email. “We await their response and certainly expect another meeting in the near future.”

The village manager said the budget he has submitted to the mayor and trustees for 2014 incorporates the initiative “along with a host of other service delivery mode changes and cost adjustments.”

Deetjen said that such adjustments are in response to Oak Lawn Village Treasurer Pat O’Donnell’s reports in August and September “outlining very succinctly the village’s structural deficit.”

A document detailing village employees’ earnings for 2012, shows that Oak Lawn’s highest paid maintenance worker earned $72,262. Other salaries for the village’s custodial and maintenance staff ranged in the mid-$60s to the low $50s.

The lowest-paid member earned $8,146, and the second lowest-paid custodial employee earned $11,495, although the document on the village’s website does not indicate if these two positions are full or part-time.

The earnings include gross wages (before taxes) and do not include benefits, such as healthcare.

Local 150 spokesman Ed Maher stated that the village is waiting to open bids on Monday morning.

“The potential impact of this upon Oak Lawn's custodial staff is entirely dependent upon what these bids look like,” Maher said in an email. “Once bids are opened, Local 150 will resume discussions with the village.”

Read more about Oak Lawn's proposed 2014 budget:

• It's 9-1-1 Time for Oak Lawn's 9-1-1 Dispatchers
• Documents: Oak Lawn 9-1-1 Dispatcher Contract Negotiations
• Oak Lawn's 911 Dispatchers on Chopping Block
• Village Board Considers 'Budget Balancing Alternatives' for 2014
• Oak Lawn Village Board Takes First Whack at 2014 Budget