CYPRESS : Hiring Freeze OKd in Face of Deficit

The City Council, facing a potential $800,000 budget deficit for the coming fiscal year, enacted a hiring freeze this week.

The freeze, unanimously approved by the council Tuesday night, includes all full- and part-time jobs in the city, including six currently vacant full-time positions.

“The picture for the city doesn’t look much better than the county or state,” Mayor Walter K. Bowman said. “We plan to look at both raising revenue and cutting expenses.”

Hardest hit by the cuts will be the Public Works Department, which has five of the current six vacancies. The remaining position is in the Police Department.

Under the freeze, future openings can be filled only with council approval. Departments must prove that they are suffering a “hardship” by keeping a position vacant.

The freeze will not affect summer positions in the Parks and Recreation Department and a few positions currently in the process of being filled, including director of public works, officials said.

In preliminary budget meetings, the city’s revenue shortage has been projected at about $800,000. Several factors, including increased fees for county services, contributed to the deficit, said city Director of Finance Richard Storey.

If the positions frozen this week remain vacant for a year, the city will save about $200,000, according to staff estimates. Other plans under consideration to close the budget gap include raising room taxes at local hotels and increasing building permit and other development-related fees, Storey said.

“The council wants to make sure that developers are paying their fair share,” he said.

The city’s final budget is expected to be passed June 24.