Good news: City can’t fill available job openings

Yesterday, I wrote about how far sales tax revenues were below projections, how it would be nearly impossible to avoid a budget deficit before the fiscal year end, and wondered what could be done to cut expenses or find some other way to meet the charter requirement to balance the budget. This morning, however, I recalled a conversation I had a week or two ago with someone with inside knowledge of the workings of city government, but someone who was speaking to me on a non-attribution basis, who told me the Kyle Police Department was having problems finding candidates to fill the positions added to this year’s budget. I wondered if I could find someone to go on the record with this information and, furthermore, would that "failure" to hire the needed cops be enough to offset the pending budget deficit.

I posed that question early this morning to Police Chief Jeff Barnett and have yet to receive a reply. But, then, Kyle’s chief of police probably has a lot more important things on his plate than responding to questions of this sort. This afternoon, however, I meandered over to City Hall for the workshop being held by the City’s Economic Development and Tourism Board on the subject of Freeport Exemptions (specifically how the school board’s reluctance to grant these exemptions is putting Kyke in a competitive disadvantage for attracting significant business development) and, as luck would have it, City Manager Scott Sellers, who has always been patient and understanding with me throwing questions at him, was also in attendance. After the workshop concluded, I ambled over, sat down next to the city manager and asked him how many of the additional police officers allotted in the most recent budget had been hired. He replied he didn’t know the number and then I told him about what I had written yesterday about the budget deficit.

"There have been a lot of positions filled, but yet there also have been some vacated since the last budget so there are still a number of openings and that does create salary savings,’ Sellers said. "But that’s a very good argument. You’re thinking exactly right that those unfilled positions do help with the overall budget."

I asked whether if it was true the number of police FTEs left open would alone compensate for the deficit.

"There have been other positions that vacated through the year or haven’t been hired yet so salary savings alone will allow us to come in under budge,." Sellers said.