Hiring Freeze

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke imposed a hiring freeze on city government yesterday, hoping to fend off a projected $24.4 million budget deficit next year.Schmoke will formally announce the hiring freeze this morning, but he told a group of residents meeting last night at Roland Park Elementary School that he took the step in hopes of avoiding layoffs of municipal employees or severe cuts in city services."

While Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke looks to trim 250 Baltimore City government jobs over the next year to help offset a projected $24.4 million budget deficit, critics complain that the city should focus instead on cutting spending.No layoffs are planned, but Schmoke said he does not intend to fill positions that become vacant during the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. That would save the city about $5 million, he said."This is just the first step," Schmoke said. "This doesn't solve the problem, it's just a step toward solving the problem."

Signet Banking Corp. said yesterday that it will begin next month a top-to-bottom restructuring designed to cut costs and transform itself from a traditional bank into a nationwide financial services company.The Richmond, Va.-based banking company has hired Aston Associates, a New York-based consulting firm, to lead the reorganization. Signet also said that it has imposed an immediate hiring freeze to minimize layoffs."While we expect this project to result in significant cost savings, its focus is not on arbitrary cuts," Malcolm S. McDonald, Signet's president and chief executive, said.

Seeking to avoid layoffs, Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke has imposed an immediate hiring freeze for all city workers except police officers and teachers.The freeze is expected to last until the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.Mr. Schmoke said at his weekly news briefing yesterday that the freeze was necessary because of projections that revenues from income and property taxes would grow by only 1 percent as of July 1, 1995."I am ordering a complete personnel hiring freeze for all departments, excluding the hiring of police and teachers as appropriate to meet enrollment needs.

Seeking to head off possible layoffs, Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. ** Schmoke said today that he is imposing an immediate hiring freeze for all city workers except for police officers and teachers.The freeze is expected to last until the end of the current fiscal year next June 30, the mayor said.Mr. Schmoke said at his weekly press briefing that the freeze was necessary because of projections that money flowing to city government from income and property taxes would grow only by a paltry 1 percent July 1, 1995.

Carroll commissioners have hired two auditors to scrutinize the operations of county departments.The Office of Performance Auditing now has four employees, office administrator Timothy D. Hartman said.Both positions, which were filled this fall, had been vacant for about two years because of a county hiring freeze, he said.The commissioners decided to lift the freeze so the auditors could be hired "to ease pressure on the existing staff," said Commissioner Elmer C. Lippy.The county audits itself continually, Mr. Lippy said.

United Airlines to lay off 2,800United Airlines said yesterday that it would lay off 2,800 employees, cut executive salaries by 5 percent and seek union concessions in the latest round of cutbacks in the money-losing airline industry.United also announced a hiring freeze and said it would reduce its schedule of domestic flights and cancel plans for some new XTC international routes.@

Mayor Earl A. J. "Tim" Warehime Jr. seemed puzzled by the recent departure of two-thirds of his town's police force.It wasn't that Officers Michael Bunn and Francis Reda left the force. Rather, it was where they ended up finding new jobs.Bunn, a four-year veteran, and Reda, on the job about four months, are the two newest road deputies for the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, a department that, like all other county agencies, has been under a 15-month hiring freeze."I thought they were supposed tohave a hiring freeze over there," Warehime said during Tuesday night's Town Council meeting.

Baltimore police officials have conceded that their heightened efforts to fill scores of vacancies will not stem the tide of overtime pay this year or end the practice of requiring officers in specialized units to walk street patrols.Two new classes of 40 recruits each will put additional uniformed officers on the street in September and December, but not enough to fill 109 vacancies the department currently has, officials said.In addition, 69 officers are scheduled to retire next month from the department, which currently has 2,858 sworn personnel.

State transportation officials, who are lobbying for higher gasoline taxes by pleading poverty, have still managed to find $64,979 to hire a former Baltimore highways official who ran one of the governor's political action committees.Frank Babusci, 42, who recently won a disability pension from the city, said yesterday he begins work Monday at Department of Transportation headquarters at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport as a contract employee "with a vast [array] of duties."Stephen G. Zentz, deputy secretary of transportation, said Mr. Babusci's new job will combine responsibility for some future programs, including a consumer quality-control effort, with a vacant post within the division of operating services.

Miracyle Thompson, a pregnant Baltimore County mother of two little boys who have sickle cell disease, was skipping meals and battling with angry doctors over unpaid bills. Her husband's sales job wasn't bringing in enough money to support the growing family. Seeking help, she applied in February for state food and medical assistance. Federal law requires that those emergency benefits be approved within 30 days. A month ticked by, and then a letter from the state Department of Human Resources arrived: "An agency delay has occurred beyond our control."

Annapolis Mayor Ellen O. Moyer, with the support of all eight aldermen on the city council, has introduced a resolution that would condemn the lease for Market House at City Dock, allowing the city to use eminent domain to take back control of the nearly vacant property that is being managed by a private company. The city has been embroiled since 2007 in a legal battle with Market House Ventures Inc., the private company that manages the property, over a faulty cooling and heating system.

As city leaders begin work on the budget process amid a bleak economic situation, two of its aldermen are pushing for a hiring freeze across Annapolis government. David H. Cordle Sr. and Frederick M. Paone, the city's Republican aldermen, introduced a resolution calling for a hiring freeze at least week's meeting and also requested a report on the city's contractual employees. "What we're doing right now is expanding city government," Cordle said. "The mayor's hired a number of people, and she's trying to paint this rosy picture.

Baltimore is slashing police and fire overtime and extending a hiring freeze to grapple with a $36.5 million shortfall brought on by declining revenues and a projected spike in public safety costs, city officials told The Baltimore Sun yesterday. The initial round of cuts should be enough to keep Baltimore's budget balanced - provided the economy doesn't get any worse, city officials said. But with global financial markets in disarray and the state considering reductions in aid to local governments to solve its own budget problems, more reductions could be on the way. "My hope is that this does not take away from the momentum we are building," Mayor Sheila Dixon said yesterday.

Accepting needed cash but then not using it could be considered rude, but that is what Maryland officials did with $350,000 Howard County provided to help staff the state-run social services office in Columbia. The county government contributes more than $400,000 annually to help the local Social Services office hire clerks and support staff, according to county budget officials. But because of the combined effects of high turnover and a partial state hiring freeze in place since 2001, a portion of the local aid remains unused while the county's poor wait for service.

Pia Jordan wore a red suit and a pleasant smile as she directed a small crew from Howard County's in-house cable TV studio. But Jordan, an 18-year studio veteran, is suddenly looking for a new job. She and five other full-time staffers learned last week that they will be laid off by July. "I don't think it has hit me yet," said Jordan, who was on assignment yesterday at county election headquarters. She described herself as being "in mourning." Jordan is among the recent casualties of local governments, which have been bracing against the slumping real-estate market, wilting state aid and shrinking revenue from income taxes by imposing hiring freezes and other personnel cuts.

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold imposed a hiring freeze yesterday, in hopes of offsetting millions of dollars in cuts to real estate tax revenues and anticipated state aid. The freeze, which went into effect immediately, does not apply to emergency personnel. In light of looming financial problems, Leopold said, "I thought it prudent to take this step in an effort to reduce spending and secure savings." The county government has 4,026 filled employee positions and 761 contractual or temporary workers, county spokeswoman Marina Cooper said.

Anne Arundel schools Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell froze hiring yesterday for about 50 unfilled nonclassroom jobs after County Executive John R. Leopold proposed funding far less than the school district had requested. The positions include business managers, custodians, clerks and technology staff. The savings from leaving the jobs open was not immediately clear. The $1.44 billion fiscal 2008 budget that Leopold unveiled May 1 included $812 million for public schools. That represented an 8 percent increase from last year, not the 17 percent rise Maxwell had sought.

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold, stepping up his cost-saving efforts, has imposed a temporary hiring freeze on most county departments and called on agency directors to set efficiency goals. Leopold announced plans Wednesday for a hiring stoppage - except for police, fire service and other public safety personnel - that would last until at least June 30, the end of the current fiscal year. County officials confirmed that about 200 current positions will be held open, but they were unable to estimate the potential savings or which departments would be most affected.

WHEN IS ASSISTING families in trouble a bad thing? According to the state Department of Human Resources, when it might cause someone somewhere to think government is too big. State welfare officials are refusing to allow Howard County's social services office to use county and private money to fill five vacancies in the agency. Why? "When asked why positions with no state funding are not allowed to be filled, the answer [from state officials] is the `perception' of increasing state government is not acceptable," reads a county Department of Social Services report given to the Howard Social Services Board last month.