ASHTABULA — City Council passed a citywide hiring freeze Monday to ease the economic challenges the county’s largest city is facing.
President Rodger Altier was one of five council members who supported the ordinance at the council meeting. Council members Julie Lattimer and James Trisket voted against the hiring freeze. It will be further discussed by council at an 8 a.m. budget meeting Friday at City Hall.
“We are in worse financial shape than we know,” Altier said. “We must do something or there will be layoffs.”
City Auditor Michael Zullo has estimated the city faces a $311,000 shortfall in 2009. The city manager is meeting with the employees’ union to make up that difference.
Lattimer said Zullo provides different figures at different meeting meetings.
Zullo was on vacation Monday and did not attend the meeting.
City Solicitor Michael Franklin said he wrote an ordinance and a resolution for the hiring freeze because “council is entering into the realm of city manager” by imposing a hiring freeze.
The city manager is the administrator and council is in charge of legislation, he said.
Councilwoman Ericka Severino called Franklin “paranoid.”
Franklin said council should talk with the department heads and then look at the budget together. That’s how other cities do it, he said.
“We looked at the budget,” Severino said.
The majority of council rejected Franklin’s suggestion and ignored Franklin’s resolution, passing the ordinance instead.
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