Council freezes hiring for city
The Hartselle City Council has issued a hiring freeze for all city departments due to fears of rising costs and revenues that could fall in coming months.
The motion to declare a moratorium on hiring employees passed 3-1 with councilmen Kenny Thompson, Don Hall and Mark Mizell voting yes, Councilman Tom Chappell voting no and Councilman Bill Smelser abstaining.
The decision came after the council opted to table a resolution allowing Police Chief Ron Puckett to hire a new patrol officer and move a current patrolman to criminal investigations.
Puckett said the city budgeted for 29 employees in the police department this fiscal year. They currently have 28 and have been that way since an officer retired at the beginning of the fiscal year. At that time, Mayor Dwight Tankersley told Puckett to not fill the position for six months to see if tax revenues would increase.
Puckett wants to fill that vacancy now after consulting with the mayor.
“We’re in need of an investigator,” Puckett said in Monday’s work session. “Our caseload has increased 20 percent from last year and we have one less investigator to work the cases.”
Thompson said he didn’t want the council to take action at this time on the police opening.
“I’d just rather us table it for now,” Thompson said.
Hall introduced a motion to approve the Puckett’s request, which was seconded by Chappell. Then Mizell introduced a motion to table the measure, which was seconded by Smelser. Voting in favor of tabling the request was Thompson, Mizell and Smelser while Hall and Chappell voted no.
Following that decision, Tankersley then asked the council for its opinion on hiring employees in other departments.
Tankersley said the city already advertised for hiring additional employees in the city. One in particular was in the public works department, where an employee had already been selected and offered the job.
Tankersley told the city’s human resources department to hold that employment until after the council’s decision Tuesday. City Clerk Rita Lee said the prospective employee ultimately turned down the job.
“I need guidance on how to proceed,” Tankersley told the council.
Mizell, who introduced a motion to freeze city hiring, said he was concerned that the city won’t have the money to pay for any additional employees next year because of rising fuel costs and he believes tax revenues will dip in the future.
“We’re not at a place to add any personnel right now whether it’s a new employee or not,” Mizell said. “It doesn’t matter that we’re replacing a position – we’re still adding an employee. We have enough money right now for ‘x.’ If you add another, that’s ‘x’ plus one.”
Chappell, however, felt like council wasn’t being fair to the police department.
“It’s all politics,” Chappell said. “We already budgeted for this position in the police department and now we’re not going to let him fill a vacancy in his department. It’s just all political.”
Smelser said the confusion about the position began with the discussion of changing software in the city. It is projected to cost $260,373, $68,000 of which would be absorbed by salary savings in the police department. The savings comes from not filling the vacancy in the police department for six months and from a grant that pays for an officer to work on the drug task force.
At that time, Smelser said he thought that position would be eliminated because of time savings from the new software system and using the salary to help pay for the system.
“I thought I heard that we weren’t going to fill that position again,” Smelser said. “The police chief still has the ability to promote a patrolman to an investigator within his department if he feels that’s best.”
The moratorium on hiring may have a side effect. Tankersley said the city may not be able to open the pool by Memorial Day.
“Because we can’t hire anybody, we can’t hire lifeguards to work at the city pool,” Tankersley said.
Thompson said the council may have to revisit this at its next meeting, which is scheduled for April 26 at 7 p.m.
