Lubbock city manager Jarrett Atkinson announced a hiring freeze starting immediately.
Atkinson did so during a city council meeting Tuesday afternoon where he said sales collections are $1.8 million below projections. The shortfall could reach $4.7 million between now and October 1 when the new budget takes effect, Atkinson said.
Public safety jobs – police, fire and animal control – are the exception. The city can still hire those roles. And the city can still hire part-time or seasonal workers.
The hiring freeze will save an estimated $563,000 in health care and $1.63 million in salaries and benefits.
Revenues from other sources are on track to go up $2.5 million. Atkinson called it “illogical.” If sales taxes are down, why are other revenues up?
“I don’t quite understand why we are where we are,” Atkinson said.
Construction permits, for example, he said, are higher than expected. (The increase is not from property taxes, which tend to be very stable and do not change in the middle of a fiscal year.)
Atkinson showed a chart of sales tax collections in other Texas cities. All of the cities (Lubbock, Amarillo, Abilene, Midland, Wichita Falls, Odessa, Arlington, Plano, Frisco and McAllen) showed the same pattern.
Sales taxes were slightly below expectations in October and November last year. They spiked much higher than anticipated in December. Then, in January and February, they went back to being sluggish.
Between the hiring freeze and the unexpected money from other sources, Atkinson told the council, he thinks the city can stay within its budget.
“Obviously if things go even further in the wrong direction, we’ll make additional changes,” Atkinson said.
During the meeting, Mayor Mark McBrayer asked, “Have you ever seen anything like this happen before?”
Atkinson answered, “I haven’t.”
Atkinson also said cities not on his chart had the same experience – for example Dallas and Houston.
Councilman David Glasheen voiced support for the decision during the council meeting.
“I want to, first of all, say thank you to our city staff for presenting a plan to keep the spending in line with revenue,” Glasheen said.
Mayor Pro-tem Christy Martinez Garcia supports the decision, but she also expressed concern both during the meeting and later in a conversation with LubbockLights.com.
“I think it was very smart of him,” Martinez Garcia said.
“I think my biggest concern is we do have some departments that are stretched to the limit. And we want to be able to continue to offer services to the public, but we also want to make sure that our staff gets the type of help that they need,” Martinez Garcia said.
“We don’t want to compromise our services or the quality of life of the community,” she said during the meeting.
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