The Fortuna City Council on November 17 approved a hiring freeze on positions funded through the general fund, with explicit exceptions for police officers and sergeants and for parks-and-recreation part-time staff.

City staff told the council the freeze is intended to offset roughly $575,000 in wage increases over two years that the council had just approved for police officers and sergeants to address recruitment and retention challenges. Staff said the police department currently has three officer vacancies and one officer on long-term leave, and remaining staff have worked up to 77 overtime hours in a pay period.

Staff also outlined a proposed one-time CalPERS prepayment of $1,500,000 that the council would consider authorizing; staff said such a payment would reduce ongoing interest costs by approximately $106,000 annually. The hiring freeze, staff said, combined with the prepayment plan, is intended to balance the budgetary impact without layoffs by relying on natural attrition and selective exceptions for essential positions.

There was no public comment opposing the hiring-freeze item; Justin Friofore, president of the Fortuna Police Employees Association, spoke earlier during public comment to thank city staff, the city manager and council for the side letter negotiated with the union and said the agreement ‘‘will get us into a competitive range with all the other agencies’’ and help retain officers.

Council voted to approve items a and c (as part of the hiring-freeze package) and then approved item b in a separate motion; the motions passed by roll call. Council instructed staff to return with details about the CalPERS payment authorization and other implementation steps.

The hiring freeze includes a council process for exceptions: staff may request exceptions for essential or critical positions subject to council approval.