City Of Dayton Freezes Hiring

The city of Dayton is taking steps to keep its budget in the black. It decided on a hiring freeze and to not replace vacant jobs. Dayton's mayor says unexpected expenses, the downward economy and reduced sales taxes prompted the hiring freeze.

John Webb considers himself a lucky man. He landed a job with the City of Dayton's Sanitation Department about a month ago just before the hiring freeze happened. Webb collects trash from homes throughout the city. Webb said, "I just got hired in."

He expressed his appreciation for landing this job, especially in these tough times. "If you find one, you better keep it."

The City of Dayton put the brakes on hiring ANY general service employees. Mayor Bob Vincent tells us the City ran into some abnormal spending. Mayor Vincent says repairing Richland creek and walking paths after flooding set the City back about 200 thousand dollars.

In addition, the police department added two new patrol cars and the fire department added equipment such as new hoses. Mayor Vincent said, "With the economy like it is and with the warnings that we were receiving that sales tax were going down, we felt like we would be prudent if we took this immediate step. The immediate step is just a freeze on hiring."

Mayor Vincent says that general services will not be affected and that the freeze is in place. Of course, that led us to the next question, are cuts coming? Mayor Vincent said that's a tough question to answer. "At this time, the way we are looking, we haven't decided that it's necessary for any job cuts, but it's hard to sit here and say because we don't know what this economy is doing."

With his new work rolling along, Webb tells us even with our economy in the dumps, he feels some job security. "As long as we got garbage, we're going to get it you know."

Governor Phil Bredesen expects a statewide shortage of about 800 million dollars in sales tax collections.That impacted Dayton's decision. Mayor Vincent says this freeze will not impact its electric department.