Jamie Munks
The State Journal-Register
Springfield Mayor Jim Langfelder is a proponent of requiring the city’s new hires to dwell within its boundaries, and he will likely bring up a residency requirement proposal “sooner rather than later,” he said last week.
While a majority of Springfield’s 10 aldermen said last week that they could support a residency requirement with certain stipulations, for several of them, reservations about cost, recruitment and enforcement persist.
A residency requirement was one of the most widely discussed issues of this year’s mayoral race, with Langfelder pushing for the requirement with a grandfather clause for existing employees.
The Springfield City Council voted in 1976 to make it mandatory for Springfield employees to live in the city. Then in 2000, a divided council voted to repeal the rule, leaving elected officials and department directors the only ones on the city’s payroll required to live within Springfield’s boundaries.
Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin proposed a rule in 2011 that would have required any Springfield employee hired after a certain date to live in the city. A nonbinding ballot measure the following year asked city voters whether they would support such a requirement, and 59 percent said they would.
At that time, about 35 percent of the city’s workforce lived outside of Springfield, with some commuting from as far as Bloomington and Peoria.
The aldermen who said they could support bringing back a residency requirement agree that there must be a grandfather clause. McMenamin, who is still a residency proponent, also favors a grace period for new hires to comply and a waiver for special situations. Examples of special situations include employees living with and caring for their parents or those who couldn’t sell their homes, he said.
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One of the ordinances on the debate agenda for Tuesday’s city council meeting is a collective bargaining agreement with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 965, which includes language that could pave the way for a future residency requirement.
The city’s labor relations manager, Stephanie Barton, knew Langfelder was a proponent of a residency requirement, and she addressed that issue with this contract while it was open, said Melina Tomaras-Collins, the city’s human resources director.
But as the issue is addressed with the larger unions representing portions of the city’s workforce, Tomaras-Collins said she sees it becoming more difficult, and in some cases costly, to work that language into contracts.
She also raised questions about some of the variables that could arise with trying to implement the rule. For example, would residents of Jerome, Grandview, Leland Grove and Southern View be included, and would city officials allow any exceptions or waivers for very technical positions or high-level leadership roles?
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 