County halts hiring on 4-1 vote

The Facts
By RAVEN WUEBKER raven.wuebker@thefacts.com
Sept 20, 2022

ANGLETON — Rising costs and a tight budget will keep most county government departments from hiring indefinitely for the first time in 13 years.

With Brazoria County Commissioners Court approving the hiring freeze at its Sept. 13 meeting, open positions will remain unfilled unless approved by the court. Even then, only positions with a salary of Step 7 or lower have a chance of being filled under the resolution approved on a 4-1 vote.

The only exceptions to the freeze are for positions in the sheriff’s, constables, and district attorney offices — all led by elected officials — the juvenile probation department and jobs that are 100 percent grant-funded.

Commissioner Dude Payne cast the lone dissenting vote.

“I didn’t think it was necessary at this time,” Payne said. “We’re not in a recession. The last time we had a hiring freeze was about 2009 or 2010, and industries were laying off people. That was the time we needed it.

“I didn’t feel that not letting the departments replace the people they need was the way to go right now.”

The county is growing and the freeze amounts to asking departments to do more with fewer people, Payne said.

Many of the positions that will go unfilled have been vacant for a while, Commissioner David Linder said.

“The reason I voted as I did is that we have many open positions, about 170, I think,” Linder said. “They’ve been open a long time, so if there are funded positions, they’re coming out of the budget whether there are people there or not.”

Struggling to balance a budget because of record-high inflation, Linder believed this was a way to enforce cost-saving measures, he said.

“I feel that as a community and a country, we’re faced with some extraordinary times with this insane inflation,” he said. “It’s affecting us all, and we have to make difficult decisions where we can save money and still provide the same level of service our community expects.”

Despite voting for it, Linder sees unintended consequences, he said.

“There will be things we didn’t think of, so we know there will have to be tweaking done as things present themselves,” he said. “But we’re going to look at everything that comes our way, take care of it and make adjustments as needed.”

Having a freeze allows commissioners to decide how vital a position is, Commissioner Stacy Adams said.

“It was necessary now because of the inflationary pressure on our budget. We have to watch every dollar closer than what we’ve done in the past,” he said.

Linder expects the hiring freeze to last until the first of the year.

“With the inflation rate reaching a level we haven’t seen in years, it’s hitting everyone, including the county, hard,” Commissioner Ryan Cade said. “I felt it was apparent that tough decisions had to be made, including adjusting some capital improvement requests, implementing a hiring freeze and halting out-of-state travel, to pass a budget that didn’t place any more financial burden on our struggling citizens.”

Along with the hiring freeze, commissioners passed an out-of-state travel ban, which prevents employee travel without court approval.

“The out-of-state travel was also a part of cost-saving measures,” Linder said. “I think there will be unintended consequences and some things we didn’t think of on this, too. It’s impossible to think of everything. We don’t have to travel now, and I don’t think we should do it.”

If the travel is needed for training, then the court will approve that, Linder said. Going to conferences will be put off a year and revisited when the economy is better, he said.

“Even in-state travel, I want to try to limit it,” he said. “I think we need to be mindful of the taxpayers’ money. I know this will affect our employees, but I think we need to tighten our belts.”

If someone is going to leave the state, the court needs to know before making the arrangements, which is not how things were done in the past, Adams said.

“Some of the conferences and training can wait since we’re trying to run lean right now,” Adams said.