City May Freeze Hiring to Help Balance Budget

A spending and hiring freeze that would take effect early next year is among solutions city officials are considering in the face of a budget deficit that could reach $2 million.

At a workshop this week, City Council members also discussed a proposal that would limit the power of the city manager and other finance officials to control the budget.

Councilman Don Griffin, who did not seek reelection this year and will leave his seat Dec. 2, suggested last month that the council require the city manager to get council approval before exceeding allotted funds on any line item in the budget.

The city manager and department heads generally may move money from one item to another within the general confines of the budget. “This is nothing better than a method to communicate better,” Griffin said.

Griffin’s motion did not pass, but Councilman Jerry Sigler said he would support the line-item measure if it included provisions that only relatively large sums of money were to be examined by the council.

But other council members rejected the idea as unnecessary and impractical. “We have a professional staff,” Councilman Donald L. Bone said. “With this degree of micro-managing, we send a message to the staff that we don’t think they can do the job.”

A more realistic message to the public that the city is doing something about the budget deficit is a hiring and spending freeze, he said.

The council agreed to wait until the mid-fiscal year budget review in January to decide whether to impose a freeze, a line-item review or take other measures.