Corbett floats idea of City Hall hiring freeze; calls for a 'use-it-or-lose-it' vacation policy

Does your employer pay you in cash for unused vacation?

The city of Cedar Rapids does for some of its employees, and Mayor Ron Corbett last night said that instituting a “use-it-or-lose-it” policy on vacation was one place to start to cut the city's budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Savings on that one item: an estimated $350,000 a year.

Corbett also proposed that the City Council consider a hiring freeze, and he asked City Manager Jim Prosser to bring back to the council the amount of money that a freeze might save the city in a year.

The city loses about 8 percent of its work force of about 1,400 employees each year, Conni Huber, the city's human resources director, noted.

Prosser was quick to tell Corbett that any hiring freeze would cut into the services the city provides, and Prosser said such an action should include an appeal process so invaluable positions don't go unfilled.

After the meeting, Corbett said he wanted to see some figures related to a freeze, and he said it didn't necessarily mean that, for instance, police officers and firefighters would be affected.

It was council member Kris Gulick, an accountant and business consultant who has been the budget specialist on the council the last four years, who began last night's by emphasizing that as much as 78 percent of the city's general operating budget goes to pay personnel wages and benefits. With those costs rising faster than city revenues, “we really have to address that,” Gulick said.

After the meeting, he said the idea of a hiring freeze of some kind at least address the personnel-cost dilemma.

Part of last night's task was to figure out a way to fund or cut to fix a $2.2-million gap in next year's budget, a gap that exists if services are kept as is and the city invests $28 million in capital improvement projects.

Council member Tom Podzimek agreed last night with what Prosser said on Monday evening - that the city should invest at least $40 million in capital projects in the next budget year to keep up with a crumbling infrastructure.

Corbett suggested that some more tax dollars might be able to be steered to capital projects if the council had good success in finding places to cut in the operating piece of the budget.

The mayor sat at his seat with an inexpensive calculator in front of him pounding in numbers as he and council members went down a list of possible places to cut, a list prepared at the council's suggestion by Prosser and Casey Drew, the city's finance director.

The first item Corbett proposed eliminating was $40,000 for “team-building” and “vision deployment” for the council. He proposed, if need be, that the council erase the $2.2 budget gap, $40,000 at a time.

Along the way, about $100,000 is coming out of the budget because the Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to pay the lease on the library's temporary quarters. Other possible cuts include $282,000 for parks vehicles and equipment; $300,000 for flood insurance that isn't yet needed; and $125,000 for tearing down blighted homes.

With each possible cut, Corbett offered some version of “We're still plowing snow, we're still picking up criminals, we're still filling potholes.”

It's when Corbett suggested a hiring freeze that council member Justin Shields jumped in and said no longer would the city be able to deliver basic services like it does now if a hiring freeze were put in place.

Council members Chuck Swore and Don Karr advocated for budget cuts to avoid any tax increase, while council members Chuck Wieneke and Podzimek expressed dismay at Corbett's budget-cutting approach.

The meeting ended with Wieneke and Corbett squaring off. Wieneke said he had never seen a budget “attacked in this way,” and Corbett fired back, calling Wieneke “my friend” and saying, “I wholeheartedly disagree.”