OKC City Manager Orders Hiring Freeze For All Departments

Oklahoma City’s city manager has ordered a hiring freeze for all city departments.

This includes part-time, full-time, seasonal and contract employees.

The City said current job vacancies will put some of the city’s aquatic parks in jeopardy come summer, and that some areas of the 7,000 acres they mow will become more overgrown than they’d like.

“We did get some lifeguards hired, they are doing training classes online, but we still need to hire more lifeguards and that's on hold right now,” said Stacey Hamm with OKC Parks and Recreation.

Hamm said just like so much of the country the city is adjusting, bracing for the fallout of COVID-19.

“Our city really relies on sales tax and with major retailers being closed for almost two months, and really with not knowing what the projections are going to be the next month or two, moving forward they're projecting the sales tax revenue will be down versus what we projected first and second quarter,” said Hamm.

The hiring freeze leaves 462 vacancies among the 4,800-plus authorized positions in the workforce, including 47 in public works.

With mowing a significant part of the city's park's budget combined with a shortage of employees, the City will now mow local parks once every three weeks this summer instead of two.

“We wanted them to know that we are going to be about a week behind, so please just be patient our crews are working diligently every week.” said Hamm.

The hiring freeze also happens to leave 93 police positions vacant. However, police and fire academies will continue as planned.