City staff outlines plan to eliminate 614 positions; urges transfers to fill 240 vacancies

A Personnel Department staff member told a City Council committee that the city plans to eliminate 614 positions beginning with the fiscal changes tied to the FY2025-26 budget and that departments should prioritize transferring affected employees into existing vacant posts.

The staff member said departments have identified roughly 240 vacant positions and that about 16 job offers have been made so far. Officials said the process to calculate service credit and other eligibility factors will begin in August and that some positions may have funding for only about four months, complicating placement and notification timelines.

Why it matters: the staffing reductions affect core public-safety functions. Committee members and staff said the police department faces the largest impact—described in the meeting as “about five times” the impact on other departments—and that certain firefighter classifications include 13 positions subject to reclassification or transfer. Staff emphasized that the effort is aimed at moving current employees into open roles where possible rather than hiring externally.

Staff described the sequence the city intends to follow: identify which of the positions slated for elimination have already been filled, encourage managers and employees to pursue transfers to vacant posts, complete manual calculations of experience and eligibility in August, then issue layoff notices when required. The staff member said the process is expected to begin in effect July 1 and that notices or formal separation information would likely be communicated in early August for employees in positions with no available funding.

Personnel staff cautioned that the work will be time-consuming and partly manual because systems do not yet produce the necessary calculations automatically. The staff member said departments have been asked to provide lists of vacancies, number of transfers, and classification details and that monthly updates will be submitted to the committee.

Several department representatives spoke about how the reductions affect their operations. A representative from Emergency Management (Elena) said her unit will not lose positions in the coming fiscal year and in fact received five positions funded by the Office of Climate Emergency Mobilization. A captain from the Fire Department (Captain Aaron) described internal transfer efforts for affected firefighter classifications and confirmed the department is filling roles from internal candidates rather than hiring externally.

Committee members asked for further detail and more frequent reporting. The committee chair asked that representatives from the police department, fire department, the city controller, the city attorney’s office, the department of general services and the human resources liaison appear at the next meeting to provide updated vacancy counts, transfer numbers and classification information; no date for that follow-up was set during the session.

There was no formal vote on the personnel item during the meeting; staff said the item will remain under committee review and that they will continue coordinating with departments to reduce separations where possible.

The committee directed staff to continue monthly updates and to return with specific numbers of vacancies and transfers at the next scheduled appearance. The meeting record shows the committee intends to track the placement effort, but several members and staff cautioned that constrained funds and statutory limits on certain positions will limit how many affected employees can be reassigned.