D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty ordered a freeze in hiring, promotions and pay raises for all District employees Monday and required a wide-reaching spending cut he says will save the city $100 million, although a critic says the hiring halt could come at the price of public safety.
Fenty’s order goes into effect Wednesday and takes a big chunk out of the $175 million budget gap. It was issued Monday after D.C. Council Chairman Vince Gray, the city’s likely next mayor, said last week that he believed Fenty needed to freeze hiring and promotions immediately to buy the council time to make the long-term spending cuts necessary to fix the city’s budget.
On Monday morning, Gray said he, the mayor and both their staffs had worked closely to develop the terms of the order. The city’s chief financial officer, Natwar Gandhi, has called the hiring and promotion freeze a “good idea.”
“The point is to stop spending now and give us the opportunity to determine, in a thoughtful way, where we go from here,” Gray said. The chairman reiterated that he’s looking at cutting expenditures before raising revenue. He said he wants to hold a public hearing after the council determines the long-term cuts it would like to make.
Gray said he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of layoffs.
“We’ve cut down to the bone. Actually we’ve cut down to the bone marrow,” he said.
Fenty could not be reached for comment.
The most apparent savings from the order Fenty issued Monday comes from a requirement that nearly all departments slash by 10 percent spending on supplies, contractual services, subsidies and equipment rental that would save $100.2 million, according to administration estimates. The order not only freezes hiring and promotions but also stops raises in salary, wages or benefits, even if those increases were part of a negotiated contract.
“I understand there is a financial challenge and squeeze,” said Joslyn Williams, president of the AFL-CIO Washington Metro Council, an umbrella union organization that represents thousands of District government employees. “I would hope there have been discussions with unions if they’re asking for relief from any union obligations.”
Williams said he did not know whether the Fenty administration had reached out to the unions.
Police union chief Kris Baumann said he had not been contacted directly and raised public safety concerns over the hiring freeze.
If the hiring freeze remains in place for a full year, the number of police officers would likely fall to about 3,700, Baumann said. That’s about 550 fewer officers than department’s stated employment goal.
Baumann said public safety agencies should be saved from spending reductions.
“It will be hard to explain to the public that it has to be less safe in order to maintain a massive bureaucracy,” he said. “There are better places to cut. We’re not down to the bone yet. We’re not even through the meat.”
