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Kansas City, Mo. finance committee to consider hiring freeze extension into 2021

Members of the Finance and Governance Committee are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss amending and extending a previously approved hiring freeze through April 2021. Some of the ordinance measures are currently set to expire at the end of the month.

Kansas City’s elected leaders are set to discuss the city’s hiring freeze Wednesday, as they consider whether to extend some of the measures they passed earlier this year.

The city’s Finance and Governance Committee, a committee arm of the City Council, is scheduled Wednesday morning to amend and extend its previously-approved hiring freeze, which “directs the city manager to implement certain cost-containment measures to include a hiring freeze and suspension of other discretionary expenditures.”

Without extension, some of the provisions of the hiring freeze were set to expire at the end of this month. The proposed ordinance goes through next April.

There are several exceptions to the freeze, including lower-paid positions and contracts related to public health and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The hiring freeze and its provisions are just some of the measures the city is taking to heavily curb its budget in the wake of falling revenue because of the pandemic. The same committee had previously approved a one-week furlough for all city staff after the finance department expressed the need to cut at least $50 million from the next two years of the city’s budget.