Chagnot to take retirement incentive

Eleven city workers have accepted the city's offer.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Jeffrey Chagnot, the city's economic development director, is taking an early-retirement incentive and will retire June 30.
Chagnot, who earns 72,451 annually, turned in his retirement papers Friday to the city's finance department.
Chagnot has spent 30 years working for the city, including the past 18 as the head of the economic development office. He plans to form an economic development consulting firm after leaving his city job.
The city is offering to buy two years of state Public Employees Retirement System time for certain employees, primarily longtime ones.
The average cost to the city for the incentive is about 40,000 per retiree, said Finance Director David Bozanich. He expects about 40 city workers to take the deal before the Jan. 31, 2008, deadline. To date, 11 workers, including three department heads, have taken it.
Of those 11, five submitted retirement paperwork in the past week.
Others taking deal
Besides Chagnot, two employees from the air pollution department, Victor Kaminski, a water department meter reader foreman, and Mary June Tartan, the community development agency's compliance director and its former interim director, filed early-retirement paperwork in the past week.
Though there is an initial cost, Bozanich said the city will save between 3 million and 6.5 million over a 10-year period.
The city can save money by hiring people to jobs at a lower salary as well as consolidating or eliminating some positions, Bozanich said.
In all likelihood, T. Sharon Woodberry, the deputy director of the economic development office, will take Chagnot's job at least on an interim basis, said Mayor Jay Williams. But no final decision is made, he said.
skolnick@vindy.com