Ted Brodeur taking early retirement offer at Joliet Park District

Ted Brodeur, who oversees the Joliet Park District golf courses and has been playing on them since he was 9 years old, retires on Friday.

Brodeur will become the next executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties.

Brodeur is taking a buyout offer made available while the park district continues to look for budget cuts, since a tax referendum was defeated in April.

"I've been doing this for over
30 years and started really at Wedgewood Golf Course in '81," Brodeur said Wednesday. "It's a lot of time in here, and it's time to move on."

Brodeur said he had planned to retire at the end of the year, but moved up his timetable because of the early retirement offer and the opportunity at Big Brothers Big Sisters.

He will make the transition to Big Brothers Big Sisters in the coming weeks, Brodeur said.

“The biggest thing I’m going to miss is the golfers,” Brodeur said. “I’ve known some of them since I was a little kid playing golf out here.”

Brodeur started golfing at age 9, got a part-time job at Wedgewood Golf Course in 1981 and left in 1985 to become a golf pro in Aurora before coming back to the Joliet Park District in 1991.

The park board voted at its
July 22 meeting to make the early retirement offer available to employees with at least 15 years of experience. Those who take it get two months of severance pay. Interim Executive Director Brad Staab said the buyout offer is "one of the cost-saving measures" being taken to cut the park district budget.

“For the short term, [Brodeur’s] position will not be filled,” Staab said.

Brodeur’s salary was $106,569.

He will get $17,215 from two months of severance pay. Brodeur gets another $81,483 from unused vacation and sick pay, which Staab said is not part of the buyout offer. Brodeur's job included oversight of golf courses, Memorial Stadium, the Inwood Athletic Club and Splash Station Waterpark, which was not opened this summer in another cost-cutting measure.