Need a job? You won’t find one with the city of Lacey in 2021, city manager says
Lacey City Manager Scott Spence delivered a sobering message on Thursday, telling the City Council that there will be no new hiring in 2021, and possibly beyond, because of COVID-19 and the slower economy.
With no new hiring and a growing city population, he asked the council to think about two things:
- Should the city realign its services to meet workforce capacity?
- And if the city doesn’t have the employees to provide all services, should the city do more with technology to help?
“If we can’t continue to add workforce given the lack of potential revenue, we have to figure out ways to do business differently,” Spence told the council.
Lacey City Councilman Lenny Greenstein said the conversation had a familiar ring to it. “The private sector is doing the same thing all over the place,” he said.
Lacey, like most local governments, has been faced with lower revenue since the pandemic pushed the national, state and local economies off a cliff earlier this year.
In response to an 11 percent drop in revenue, or about $6 million, the city made cuts to its 2020 budget.
Although the city’s sales tax revenue is expected to be lower by about $786,000 next year, some categories of sales tax revenue have done surprisingly well during the pandemic, finance director Troy Woo said.
Year-to-date revenue generated by construction in the city is up 9.8 percent and general merchandise stores are up 3.3 percent, Woo said.
One category that hasn’t fared well because of COVID-19 restrictions is the restaurant business, down 9.6 percent year-to-date, he said.
Woo acknowledged that the initial economic impact of the pandemic was not as bad as feared, although he also doesn’t think the city has felt the full impact of the virus because of federal and state stimulus money and moratoriums that protect unemployed residents.
The city will need to adapt, and it will be taking a closer look at the existing workforce, City Manager Spence said.
He said the city is close to having 290 full-time equivalent employees, and the cost of that workforce eats up two-thirds of the city budget.
“We’re getting to a situation of how do we anticipate or maintain our current workforce,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge in the near and long-term future.”
Spence will make a presentation on the 2021 budget on Oct. 22, then two public hearings will be held on Nov. 5, followed by a third public hearing in mid-November. The budget is expected to be adopted on Dec. 3.
This story was originally published October 2, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
