Gainesville City Commission discusses hiring freeze and possible downsizing in response to reduced payments from GRU

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the February 6 Gainesville City Commission meeting, Commissioners asked the Charter Officers to bring back their thoughts about a hiring freeze in the current budget year and information about reducing the size of their departments next year in response to reduced payments from GRU.

Budget calendar pulled from consent agenda

During the adoption of the agenda and consent agenda, Commissioner Ed Book made a motion to remove an agenda item with dates for the FY2026 budget meetings from the consent agenda and place it on the regular agenda “for just some brief discussion.” The discussion lasted nearly an hour and a half.

Mayor Pro Tem Bryan Eastman, who was chairing the meeting while Mayor Harvey Ward attended a conference, said he had also been hoping to have that agenda item pulled from the consent agenda, and he placed it near the beginning of the afternoon portion of the meeting. The motion to pull it from the consent agenda passed unanimously.

The agenda item in question was simply a list of dates for budget meetings between a March 27 fiscal retreat and the adoption of the budget in September, and the staff recommendation was to adopt the calendar.

Book: “We’re going to need to probably make some hard decisions… during the budget cycle.”

When they reached the agenda item in the afternoon session, Book said he had no concerns with the dates but asked that the item be pulled because “it probably dovetails in the conversation about our fiscal restraint… That’s not going to change over the next 24 to 36 months, and I think it probably would behoove us to give some guidance to our Charter [Officers] and executive leaders so that they can prepare and better be able to provide us information that we’re going to need to probably make some hard decisions… during the budget cycle.” He asked the City Manager to talk about what they could do to plan for the upcoming fiscal year.

City Manager Cynthia Curry said that given the reduction in GRU’s Government Services Contribution, she expects a “severe impact” on the budget, but she intends to recommend no increase in the property tax millage. 

On top of reducing the transfer, GRU has been reducing the payments sent to the City for services provided

Curry said GRU sent their monthly contribution for the months of October and November, and December is pending, “but they have already started to reduce from that number the streetlight pro rata share, as well as the pro rata share of the costs of any legal fees.” She said she would be meeting with GRU CEO Ed Bielarski to talk about those issues and the Service Level Agreements that are still pending. 

Curry will implement a “hard hiring freeze” in her department on March 1

Curry said the City’s operating departments have reduced their budgets for the last three years, and more cuts are anticipated, so they “started with a hiring freeze. We have a soft hiring freeze in place already on the General Government side,” but now it will be a “hard hiring freeze” starting March 1 “for General Government under my Charter… because we just really have no certainty around a large revenue line of eight and a half million, in terms of what that reduction could mean by the time we get to the end of the fiscal year.” She said the fund balance is healthy and can be used to plug one-time shortfalls, but that won’t be available in future years. 

City Auditor: This is not a good time for a hiring freeze

City Auditor Stephen Mhere, who reports to the City Commission and is independent from the City Manager, said the hiring freeze would affect his department immediately because he is recruiting for a Senior Auditor position, and having fewer auditors increases risk for the City. He continued, “I’m trying to say that times like this, considering all that is at stake, are times to ramp up the Audit Department; the time to shrink your Audit Department is when things are hunky-dory, when things are good… So my request is, if possible, to allow me to at least fill my position.”

Commissioner Casey Willits said it “feels like every day, there’s a new invention of a reason to not pay what has previously both been agreed upon and what has been budgeted by the elected form of government in the City of Gainesville… I agree that we need a hiring freeze.” However, he said the cuts should primarily come from the City Manager’s department instead of the smaller departments, some of which have only five employees. 

Willits: “There’s no better way to [harm the citizens of Gainesville] than what the GRU Authority, or Mr. Bielarski himself, has been doing”

Willits continued, “This is no way to run the government. This is no way to have an operation between two different forms of government, that we can’t rely on our budget. You know, it’s ridiculous, and… there’s no better way to [harm the citizens of Gainesville] than what the GRU Authority, or Mr. Bielarski himself, has been doing, with finding reasons to not pay what is owed to the City of Gainesville.”

Chestnut: “I think that we have been very, very polite, as far as GRU is concerned.”

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut agreed, “I think that we have been very, very polite, as far as GRU is concerned. I think it’s time for us to tell the story to the public of what $35 million [the transfer in FY23] to probably $6 million [the FY25 transfer is $8.5 million] means.”

Chestnut was also interested in the impact on the budget of job audits, which can be used to change a job description and lead to a corresponding salary increase.

Eastman’s proposed motion

Referring to a piece of paper in front of her, Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker thanked Book for his “great attention to fiscal responsibility and how we handle our budget… And so it appears that what we have received at the dais is probably your motion.”

Eastman said, “That is my motion.”

Duncan-Walker said she would prefer for staff to have time to prepare before having a discussion about a hiring freeze.

Eastman favors an across-the-board hiring freeze and a process to “right-size” City departments

Eastman said, “What I look for is a motion here… What my motion is focused on, more primarily, is… [an] across-the-board hiring freeze, similar to what the City Manager said she is instituting for General Government, but then also a process forward so that we can talk about how we’re going to right-size some of our administrative departments.” He said that with GRU creating its own administrative departments, the City’s corresponding departments may need to downsize. 

Eastman continued, “Administration is important, but the services that our taxpayers paid for is the thing that I’m focused on.” He favored freezing hiring immediately except for “mission-critical positions.”

The second part of his motion, Eastman said, was “more about structure,” and he was looking for recommendations from each department, along with data about the scope of services provided, the number of employees, and how that compares to similar-sized departments in other cities.

The motion handed out on the dais

At Alachua Chronicle’s request, Eastman shared the motion that was handed out on the dais:

“Move that we institute across all Charters a City-wide hiring freeze for all administrative positions that previously supported both GRU and General Government, limiting hiring to only mission-critical positions, pending City budget discussions.

“Direct the City Manager to bring back to the Commission recommendations for consolidation, efficiency, and staff sizing for all administrative departments that previously supported both GRU and General Government, with recommendations for staffing and scope for these departments with no funding or responsibilities with GRU, to be brought back for our May 2025 budget workshops.”

Ingle: “Leaner is what you get when people starve you. We’ve been robbed of resources that I think are rightfully the people of Gainesville’s.”

Commissioner James Ingle said, “Somebody mentioned that we’re leaner and more streamlined than we were. And leaner is what you get when people starve you. We’ve been robbed of resources that I think are rightfully the people of Gainesville’s.” He said he agreed that the City had “tried to take the high ground and be pretty polite with the GRU Authority, who, in my opinion, is just stealing money from the citizens of Gainesville.” He said he was “awfully hesitant” to institute a hiring freeze without more conversation, but he thought the second part of the motion made sense to “right-size some things.”

Curry: “We just have to do it”

Curry said that since she is “held accountable to keeping us from going over budget,… we just have to do it” in the General Government departments that report to her. She added, “I’m not suggesting, for any other Charter, anything other than what they think is best for their Charter and their operations. But for General Government, which is the lion’s share, obviously, of the budget, the freeze has to be part of the toolset that I use to manage the budget.” She said she would do what was in the top part of the motion, regardless of whether they made a motion to ask her to do it.

Book: “Today is not the day” for a City-wide hiring freeze

Book said, “Today is not the day” for the top part of the motion (a hard hiring freeze). He added, “It’s extreme. It’s an operational decision that the Manager can make, regardless.” He suggested creating a steering committee to determine which positions are mission-critical; he said they could decide to enact a similar policy in two weeks after feedback from the community and staff, but they would also have more data at their fiscal retreat on March 27 and could institute a hiring freeze at that point, “so I think we probably do not want to go that route today.”

Book said, however, that he would support the “bottom half” of Eastman’s proposed motion, but he would remove the language limiting it to positions that support GRU and instead ask staff to improve efficiency across the City.

Willits: “It feels like the GRU Authority has been more of a disaster than an actual hurricane to the citizens and to the residents, taxpayers, of Gainesville”

Willits also supported only the second part of the motion and said, “It feels like the GRU Authority has been more of a disaster than an actual hurricane to the citizens and to the residents, taxpayers, of Gainesville because [fund balance can be used to mitigate hurricane damage] – but not because [the GRU Authority and Bielarski] just don’t think they… have to follow the agreements that are already kind of, you know, that are on paper… I just had to say that suddenly… There’s an argument that the GRU Authority has been a bigger disaster to the budget of Gainesville – purposely so, rather than accidentally through a hurricane.”

Eastman: “Now we’re going into year three of all this”

Curry said the discussion had gone “way beyond what I was thinking,” and Eastman agreed. Eastman added that he had previously not been in favor of cutting departmental budgets until a decision was made about whether the City Commission would regain the governance of GRU, but “now we’re going into year three of all this” and have the opportunity to determine what size the Charter Officers’ departments should be, based on information from comparable cities. 

Eastman: Charter Officers should “think seriously about the fact that we are looking at shrinking”

Eastman said the Commission was just making sure they were giving direction to their Charter Officers to “think seriously about the fact that we are looking at shrinking… We want to make sure we’re being responsible.” He said the Commission would need staff to look at City government, “top to bottom,” and come back with recommendations for the proper size of the various departments; he said they also might want to hire a consultant to do that. He said he favored putting the City Manager “in the driver’s seat of this” so the effort would be “streamlined… I wanted one entity in the driver’s seat of saying, ‘Here are some hard recommendations. You could choose to take them, you could choose not to.'”

Mhere: City Auditor’s office must be seen as independent from the City Manager

Mhere said, “That thought that the City Manager would represent my interests is probably not a very good idea because it will be viewed by people as taking away the independence of the Office of the City Auditor… I basically audit her, and now she’s speaking for me – people will not believe that actually I’m independent.”

Eastman responded, “The way I have it structured here is the recommendation [comes from] the City Manager, and if you agree with the recommendation, that’d be fine. If not, I would fully expect you to say you disagree.”

Folston: “While I think the Manager’s more than capable of doing it,… I would prefer we don’t do that.”

Director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion Zeriah Folston agreed with Mhere: “The delicate balance between Charters is so essential to the City being able to provide the services that they provide. So while I think the Manager’s more than capable of doing it,… I would prefer we don’t do that.” He said he would prefer for each Charter to bring back a plan, which the Commission can accept or change. He continued, “You’ve given us all responsibilities; allow us to come back with that.”

Willits said he would prefer that the Charters develop their own proposals but send them to the City Manager to be incorporated into a single presentation. 

First motion

Book said he didn’t support hiring a consultant. He made the following motion: “Direct the Charter Officers to bring back to the Commission recommendations in one report… for consolidation, efficiency, staff sizing, and scope for their respective departments… These recommendations should consider data and aspects such as, but not limited to, job audit information, previous numbers of staffing budget – for example, what did we have in 2015? What did we have in 2020? What are we going to have in 2025? – … previous data on overlapping services – we did that in our agreements already – potentially having a steering committee consider hiring freezes, and bring it back in two weeks.” Duncan-Walker seconded the motion.

Curry said, “Give us a little time. We have a fiscal retreat on March 27.” Book replied, “We don’t need everything in 14 days, but we do need the opportunity for the community to weigh in… We need our respective leadership and our Charter Officers to weigh in on where they think we can be. And we need that before the retreat so that at the retreat we’re making some really good decisions.”

Duncan-Walker said the Charter Officers should schedule one-on-one meetings with the Commissioners before the fiscal retreat. 

Ingle: Motion seems like “a weird extra half-report”

Ingle said this was his first budget cycle, but the motion seemed like “a weird extra half-report… I don’t know that putting this extra assignment on top of them for two weeks from now, so that we can have the information a few weeks earlier,… instead of asking them to come around to each Commissioner… I don’t see the benefit of adding this extra step.”

Willits said the first part of Eastman’s proposed motion (the hiring freeze) affects the current budget year because GRU reduced the amount they’re transferring to the City mid-year; the part about determining the proper size of each department will provide information needed to set the FY26 budget. He said he considered the motion to be “our first salvo and instructions for our fiscal retreat,” but he might still support a hiring freeze in the near future, “so I don’t know if that’s clear… After this, I will make a motion to include on the next City Commission meeting more of what we’re talking about for FY25, with potential hiring freezes and what open positions are going to be mission-critical.”

Eastman agreed that a City-wide hiring freeze would make sense on March 1, to align with the City Manager’s hiring freeze on that date. However, Willits never made that motion.

Book said he agreed that a decision about a hiring freeze is the priority: “We need to know about a hiring freeze in two weeks,… and the rest of the items can come over the next 30 days,… but certainly in advance of March 27.”

Ingle: “It just seems weird to try and define what mission-critical is from [the dais].”

Ingle said they could just tell Charter Officers that if they hire anyone between now and October, “there’s a decent chance that if you don’t have the budget for them, they’re going to be let go, once that rolls around. I mean, we’ve got some hard decisions coming up… It just seems weird to try and define what mission-critical is from [the dais].”

Eastman said Book’s motion was “not nearly as aggressive as what I put forward, but I guess I can support it… What I would love to see back is, you know, sizes of some of these departments within peer cities.”

Curry will compile presentations from all the Charter Officers

Curry said she would bring back a presentation that compiles the presentations from each Charter Officer, “not colored by what I think.”

Book jokingly asked whether he could put the item back on the consent agenda and continued, “I think that the focus here is clearly,… let us know as quickly as possible, as soon as possible, about what we’re doing with our positions, and that can come back as soon as two weeks… and we need to know because we’re in the middle of the fiscal year… I guess we can’t take it and put it back on consent.”

Vote on first motion

Book’s motion passed unanimously.

Second motion and vote

Willits made a motion to adopt the budget calendar that had been in the original consent agenda item, and Chestnut seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.