‘Not out of the woods,’ but Whatcom County ends hiring freeze sparked by deficit concerns
Whatcom County is lifting a hiring freeze that started last year as the county was facing a $15 million deficit in its 2025-2026 general fund budget.
County Executive Satpal Sidhu announced the end to the hiring limits at Tuesday night’s County Council meeting. But he asked department heads to take a hard look at every funding request because employee raises for next year will need to come from savings realized in this year’s budget.
“We are not out of the woods in addressing our budget challenges, but filling key vacancies is necessary to maintaining core services,” Sidhu said.
Whatcom County spokesman Jed Holmes told The Herald that the county has 1,079 full-time positions in this year’s budget. About 8% of those jobs are vacant, he said in an email.
Deputy Executive Aly Pennucci told the County Council that administrators are looking closely at every new hire. The freeze ended Wednesday.
“Because our wage (increases) for 2026 are not budgeted, if it’s not a critical position, having a vacancy is a real effective tool to absorb next year’s cost increases,” Pennucci said.
Whatcom County was sixth among the area’s top employers in 2023, according to the most recent data from the Western Washington University Center for Economic and Business Research.
Sidhu started a ”selective” hiring freeze on July 15, 2024, pausing employment vacancies for at least 90 days, except where an offer was extended prior to the freeze. Elected officials and department heads were able to recruit and fill a position with prior approval during the freeze.
This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 1:52 PM.
