Mistakes stall back pay for hundreds of Chicago firefighters and paramedics – Chicago Sun-Times

Pat Cleary, of the Chicago firefighters union, said the city’s failure to deliver back pay checks by the Dec. 30 deadline means the city must pay 4.5 percent annual interest on payments as high as $35,000. The problem started when the city waited until mid-January — at least two weeks after the deadline — “to start cutting checks for anybody,” Cleary said. When checks were finally in the mail, the Johnson administration “realized that they screwed up and didn’t take out pension deductions.”