Mayors hiring freeze.

Is Mayor Bergson's hiring freeze to belame for much of the city's budgett problems. I think it is with less police and fire fighters they have had to work overtime. The story intodays paper, http://duluthnews.com


Depending on how you look at it, the news on the city's budget for 2005 is bad and good, said Julio Almanza, Duluth's interim chief administrative officer.
It's bad because the City Council is being asked to approve spending $600,000 more than was budgeted.
But it's good because the increase will be covered by city investments that earned about $650,000 more than expected, Almanza said.
Most of the added expense comes from unbudgeted overtime for police, firefighters and public works employees generated as a result of Mayor Herb Bergson's hiring freeze. But the same hiring freeze saved the city an estimated $900,000 in salary and benefits costs, said Peg Spehar, the city's budget manager.
But the city also faced an additional $250,000 in unanticipated salary costs for severance and back pay to employees who were fired and/or reinstated. The bulk of that expense is from settled lawsuits, while about $53,000 was severance paid to former Chief Administrative Officer Mark Winson, whom Bergson fired in September.
The City Council will vote to approve the spending increase during its last scheduled meeting of the year Dec. 19. The council also is poised to set a $75 million 2006 general fund budget and the amount to be raised by property taxes during that meeting. Bergson is proposing a zero percent tax rate increase, but the city will still collect more in property taxes from property value increases and new construction not previously on the tax rolls.