A change to city workers’ pension is prompting more Sioux Falls employees to retire. That means some long-held positions are open to people who want to work for the state’s largest city.
By the end of 2014, Sioux Falls leaders expect more than 70 city employees to retire. That number is double the usual count for retirements citywide.
Human Resources Director Bill O’Toole says he attributes the unusually high retirement rate to last year’s change in the city’s pension plan. He says replacing a retiree takes training.
"We communicate to each department on an annual basis, we write them a list of all of their employees that are eligible to retire to help them be thinking and doing that succession planning and preparing," O'Toole says. "Obviously even though you’ve got people eligible to retire, they may or may not decide to go, but they are at least away of those folks that are there to go so they can work on those knowledge transfer issues and be as prepared as possible."
O’Toole says the 70 retirement positions open based on department. He says those openings are additions to the regular turnover for city workers and seasonal hiring, which can run up to 500 temporary jobs.
For details on current openings or to sign up for alerts, you can visit Sioux Falls’ website.