County Supervisors Reject Hiring Freeze

Despite projections of severe budget shortfalls, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday turned back an effort to implement a hiring freeze and voted instead to exempt several county departments from any future hiring freeze.

Although the supervisors agreed to take up the matter again in two weeks, the vote was a blow to the county’s new chief administrative officer, Sally Reed, who proposed the hard-and-fast freeze on all hiring and promotions to lessen the need for significant layoffs later in the year.

“Of course I’m disappointed, but these are hard decisions,” Reed said after the four-hour debate.

Reed told the board that by postponing the freeze “we are sending absolutely the wrong message” to scores of department heads. “What you are doing today is weakening our control of the budget,” Reed said. “Now every department head will know they can come to the board on any given Tuesday for an exemption,” from any hiring freeze.

The board agreed to exempt two new Sheriff’s Department academy classes--about 200 cadets--from the hiring freeze, as well as any medical personnel necessary to maintaining accreditation of the county’s hospital facilities.

Reed said the board must begin preparing for a projected $1-billion budget shortfall when the new fiscal year begins in July.

The county has had a hiring freeze of a sort in effect for the last year. Described by Reed as a “Swiss cheese freeze,” it allows hundreds of new workers to be hired each month. In the past year, nearly 5,000 employees have been hired by the county, according to figures compiled by Reed’s office.

Supervisors were divided on the freeze proposal. Supervisor Gloria Molina advocated a tough freeze, but wanted a clear, definitive implementation plan first. Supervisor Ed Edelman said a hard-and-fast freeze unfairly ties the hands of department heads and he recommended they be given a target budget cut and be allowed to design their own plan for meeting it.