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Hundreds of City of Seattle jobs previously slated to be cut will be saved … at least for now.

After announcing that 200 Seattle city workers would lose their jobs, Mayor Mike McGinn recently said he would postpone those layoffs in an effort to boost employee morale. According to an article by The Seattle Times, those cuts were expected to affect senior managers, executives and strategic advisers.

Aside from wanting to maintain employee morale, McGinn said he has now learned the anticipated city budget deficit will most likely be worse than he originally thought, meaning more than 200 jobs may need to be cut.

It was previously estimated that next year’s deficit would be about $40 million, but given the expected increase in that number, McGinn now plans to recommend midyear job cuts by June 30. However, officials say those cuts will be made in a more “thoughtful and methodical” way.

Officials previously implemented a senior-level personnel review, which will work toward the goal of cutting jobs. The review process, which will take place during Q1 of this year, will identify positions that can be eliminated or reclassified, focusing specifically on executive, manager and strategic adviser positions.

McGinn also signed four executive orders meant to reduce or limit city government spending, including:

1. Eliminating salary increases during 2010 for executives, managers and strategic advisers instead of the previously proposed 2 percent increase. In addition, the number of furlough days offered to these employees will be reduced from 10 to seven.
2. A hiring review requiring departments to obtain authorization before initiating any hiring process to fill open positions.
3. A senior-level salary review requiring departments to obtain authorization for any salary offer made to an executive, manager or strategic adviser.
4. A consulting contract review requiring departments to obtain authorization before awarding any new consulting contract or consulting contract amendment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Seattle, job search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.