Council presses staff on vacancy savings, fund balance and the cost to unfreeze police positions

Council members spent substantial time probing how staff used vacancy savings, one-time fund-balance resources and recommended tax-rate options to reach a balanced budget. Assistant City Manager Jeff Yates explained that vacancy "savings" (the difference between budgeted payroll and actual payroll) is calculated across the organization using payroll trends and not by annotating specific positions as vacant for a set period; for the recommended budget staff used an $8.9 million vacancy-savings assumption.

Yates said the $8.9 million has already been used in the manager’s recommended funding strategy to reduce the fiscal impact and is not available as an additional pool to spend. Council members asked how remaining vacancy-savings (if higher-than-estimated) would be treated; Yates said excess savings first offset overtime or temporary costs in departments with overages, and any residual would flow to fund balance and could be recommended for one-time uses later.

On staffing, council pressed whether any of the single-cent options presented in earlier budget materials would fully fund 38 frozen Fayetteville Police Department positions. Yates and staff said no single-cent option included in the materials fully funded all 38 positions; fully funding the 38 positions would likely require roughly two pennies on the tax rate or another funding strategy because each position is approximately a $100,000 fully loaded cost.

Councilors asked for scenarios that show the trade-offs: a zero-increase budget that nonetheless restores frozen positions, or alternative configurations that fund public safety positions alongside other council priorities. Manager Dr. Hewitt and staff said they will prepare such scenarios for upcoming work sessions but cautioned that adding ongoing staff costs requires recurring revenue rather than one-time fund balance.