Cleveland City Council likely to scrap mayor’s 2024 staffing shake-up

Mayor Justin Bibb and City Council President Blaine Griffin prepare for budget discussions Tuesday morning ahead of opening remarks at Cleveland City Council’s 2024 budget hearings.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cleveland City Council is considering ditching a key aspect of Mayor Justin Bibb’s proposed 2024 staffing plan, which was intended to grant his administrators more flexibility in how they fill city jobs.

The new concept proposed by Bibb in this year’s budget plan – known as a “vacancy pool” – appears to have won few fans on City Council during budget hearings last week and this week.

Council President Blaine Griffin on Monday said he’s pursuing one of two outcomes for the “vacancy pool” when council makes its changes to the budget over the next few days: scrapping the pool entirely, or changing it in such a way that hiring would happen in nearly the same way that it always has.

The vacancy pool, if enacted, would mark a big departure from the way the city usually anticipates its staffing costs in a given a year. It would also eliminate some of council’s oversight authority when it comes to city spending.

Traditionally, in years past, the city has set money aside for staffing needs within each city department, such as Building and Housing’s code enforcement division, or divisions within the Department of Public Health. That has included the money necessary to fill empty positions that each division anticipates needing in the coming year. In setting the annual budget, council ultimately decides how much money is available for each department’s staffing needs.

Under the vacancy pool concept, some of the money would not be allocated to specific departments and divisions. Instead, money would be set aside for a citywide vacancy pool. Individual departments could then request permission from Bibb’s administrators to hire employees as needed throughout the year. Bibb’s team would have the final say on each department’s hiring decisions, by deciding which ones are allowed to tap the pool.

Bibb’s original budget proposal this year called for removing 125 vacant positions from various departments and placing them in the citywide pool. Meanwhile, 174 vacancies would remain budgeted under specific departments. Police jobs were excluded from the pool concept.

Because some departments rarely fill all the vacant positions that are usually allocated for them, Bibb’s team views the vacancy pool as a handy way to free up money and encourage departments to fill existing slots before seeking additional positions.

They say it would allow City Hall to be more flexible. Under the current system, for example, money set aside for Public Works jobs couldn’t be used to pay for a Public Health staffer. With a pool, Bibb’s team could decide on the fly which positions ought to be filled.

But in one stark example of council’s hesitancy around the vacancy pool, several members last week objected to Bibb’s plan to remove positions from code enforcement and put them in the vacancy pool. Bibb relented and added the positions back to the Division of Code Enforcement. But council members were also concerned about similar moves in the health department, and in public works, which have yet to be addressed.

Finance Chief Ahmed Abonamah, during recent hearings, said the vacancy pool would not tread on council’s spending authority, because council members would still be approving the plan on the front end.

But under the system the city has long used, council has been able to set specific staffing levels for each department.

By allowing the Bibb administration to make those final determinations through the vacancy pool, council would lose some ability to make those calls.

Griffin on Monday likened the pool to a potential “slush fund.”

Under the two options Griffin is considering, council would continue to call the shots. If council eliminates the vacancy pool, they’d return all 125 positions back to the departments from where they came. If council maintains the pool, but decides to make council the one who decides which slots get filled (instead of Bibb’s team), then the system would largely return to the way it’s always worked, with council having the final say.

Griffin told his colleagues on Monday that those are the two options he is considering, but he encouraged members to pitch alternative plans.

It remains to be seen what other budget changes City Council intends to make this year, but some council-led additions that have already been incorporated include:

-$3.7 million for the tree-damaged sidewalk program

-Adding full-time security at recreation centers, instead of part-time. (This change contributed to a $1.2 million increase in the budget of the recreation division.)

-Adding extra staff in the Department of Economic Development, aimed at fostering development at the neighborhood-level

-Increasing each of the 17 councilmembers’ discretionary capital accounts from $125,000 to $150,000.

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