Joliet City Council to vote again on looser residency rules for city workers

The Joliet City Council will vote Tuesday on a second contract that tosses out a requirement that union employees live inside city limits.

Lifting residency requirements can be controversial since it allows employees to live outside the city where taxpayers fund their salaries.

City management wants the residency requirement eliminated, saying low housing inventory makes it too difficult to attract workers when the city requires that they live in Joliet.

The contract on the agenda for a vote on Tuesday eliminates the residency requirement for Local 2369 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, the union that represents supervisors in the Joliet Fire Department.

Instead, fire department supervisors would be required to live within a 50-mile radius of the Joliet intersection of Jefferson Street and Essington Road.

The same residency rule was put into a contract with the union that represents rank-and-file firefighters. The council approved the contract on July 1.

Both contracts also include 3.25% pay increases for four years, starting with a retroactive increase as of Jan. 1 this year.

Only one resident showed up to object before the July 1 meeting when the council approved the loosened residency requirement for Local 44 of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

That resident was Damon Zdunich, who said his own survey indicated people are overwhelmingly opposed to the loosening of the residency requirement but were generally unaware of the council vote on the contract.

The city typically posts council agendas on late Thursday afternoons or Fridays before the Tuesday council meetings, giving only a few days’ notice of what is on the agenda.

The council also meets at 5:30 p.m. on Mondays at City Hall for a workshop meeting before the regular meetings at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays when it votes.