City staff report large municipal position reductions and outline hiring steps

City staff reported substantial municipal job cuts and described plans to redeploy or refill some roles while officials pressed for clearer, itemized counts.

Keep Redeskyrie, identifying themselves as from the Office of Sea Geo, told the council that “since July 1 there have been 5,595 positions eliminated” and that transfers have allowed about 108 positions to be rehired. Staff also said the most recent January report recorded 223 eliminations.

Council members and human-resources staff asked for more granular detail. Staff said 184 positions currently lack funding; of those, 152 were identified as police positions. A staff member, Brian, said the city had reduced its count to 138 affected employees “as of this morning” and anticipated resolving about 75 positions by March, with additional moves over six months.

Ledy Ortiz of the Department of Personnel described a department-wide survey to identify historical pay and personnel-record errors that must be corrected in the Worktech system before further staffing decisions can be finalized. Ortiz called the effort “a high priority” and said many updates require manual review of each employee record.

The discussion also identified several classifications for which additional funds are needed to place employees; staff said five classifications remain unresolved without funding. Council members asked staff to return with a written report and requested clearer departmental breakdowns to share with the public.

The council took items 0.1 and 0.2 together earlier in the meeting and approved them; staff said they would provide a fuller written report at the next meeting with the requested breakdowns.