City Manager Jim Connors will retire early next year.

Connors, 52, who became city manager in February 1998, is accepting the early retirement incentive that is offered to city employees and will retire Jan. 30.

“I started looking at the program, and I looked at my personal and professional goals, and decided it was the opportune time to participate,” he said.

Connors received his undergraduate degree at NIU in 1972 in the division of public administration program. He received his graduate degree in 1977, also at NIU.

He was in city administration at Warrenville for eight years before returning to DeKalb for the city manager position.

The early retirement plan is part of the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund and is available to most local governments.

For the program, city employees have to be 50 years old or older and have to work more than 20 years to participate.

Mayor Greg Sparrow said he wasn’t surprised to hear about the retirement.

“I knew he could qualify for it, and I heard rumblings that he was looking at it,” Sparrow said. “My feeling was he would end up taking it.”

Sparrow and Connors worked together when Sparrow was an alderman in 1979 and 1980, and when he first became mayor in 1981. At that time, Connors was special project coordinator/community development director.

Sparrow and Connors had the same goal of moving the city ahead and bolstering economic development, Sparrow said.

“I thought we worked well together,” Sparrow said.

Sparrow, along with city council members, would be in charge of finding Connors’ replacement.

He said he hadn’t had a chance to contact all of the aldermen yet, and this would be something talked about at the next city council workshop on Aug. 18.

“This is a very important decision to make,” he said. “There are a number of ways to pursue this.”

One thing that can be done is to have a national search, or, what Sparrow prefers, look somewhere in the Midwest. He said there is no need to rush since a final decision doesn’t have to be made until six months from now.

This is the third search for a city manager Sparrow has been involved with.

“This is the first time I experienced [the city manager] retiring,” he said. “Usually it was just someone moving to a different position.”

The city manager’s job is to oversee the day-to-day operations, and to work with the city council and administration.

Connors said advice he would give to the new city manager would be to listen to the staff and let that person know he or she is working with good employees.

“That person would have to uphold the city manager’s code of ethics,” Connors said. “[We] have one just like any other profession.”

Connors said after retirement he plans to spend more time with his two adult sons, one of whom is a doctor and the other is a lawyer, and his 6-year-old son.