By JESSIE STENSLAND

Staff reporter

Oak Harbor Councilman Paul Brewer says he’s tired of hearing the city administration complain about the budget while not make enough effort to cut spending.

In fact, he says he sees a lot of frivolous spending going on.

So Brewer wants to take the matter into his own hands. On the city council meeting next Wednesday night, he plans to make a motion to freeze employee hiring.

“We raised taxes, but we haven’t seen any real cuts,” he said. “Now is the time to take action.”

While Interim City Administrator Doug Merriman agrees — conditionally — with the idea of a hiring freeze, he argues that the administration has been very conscientious about keeping costs down. He points out, for example, that the city is currently down a number of positions.

Brewer said he got fed up waiting for Mayor Patty Cohen to make more cuts when he heard that she spent $800 to send out Christmas cards. He said he has concerns about Cohen’s discretionary budget, especially with the amount of traveling she’s been doing. He looked through a box of “City of Oak Harbor” coffee mugs Wednesday and complained that the city shouldn’t be spending money so needlessly.

Also, he said the city pays $5,600 a year in a interlocal agreement with the school district for a shared technology professional, but the person rarely makes it to the city. Brewer said the city could save thousands of dollars by contracting out the work. The city council discussed the problem with the technology professional at the last meeting, but no decisions were made.

In addition, Brewer argues that Cohen doesn’t need the new secretary that she’s been advertising for, especially now that she has a new $110,000 a year administrator and her own executive assistant.

Yet Brewer doesn’t seem to have all the facts. The city, for example, has budgeted $400 a year for Christmas cards since Al Koetje was in office. The city sent out $800 in cards last Christmas, but Cohen wrote a personal check of $424.56 to cover the costs.

The mayor has a budget of $4,500 a year for traveling expenses in state and one trip to Washington D.C. Again, Merriman said Cohen picks up many of the expenses herself.

Merriman says the city is in the process of reevaluating its interlocal agreement with the school district to see if the city is indeed getting a fair share of work from the technology professional.

In addition, Merriman says the city is advertising for a administrative secretary because the current secretary is leaving. Yet he says the administration is waiting to see if the council decides on a hiring freeze before hiring someone.

Yet beyond the finger pointing, both Brewer and Merriman seem to agree that a hiring freeze may be the way to go.

“Hiring freezes can work very well,” Merriman said. “We just need to make sure we don’t freeze critical positions like police officers.”

Brewer said he simply prefers a hiring freeze to laying off employees. If the city isn’t hiring new people, the number of city employees will likely drop through attrition. He said the administration should cross-train and move employees around within the city to fill any holes.

“I want to move as quickly as possible on this,” he said. “People are leaving now.”