Gov. Jerry Brown's hiring freeze has thawed some.

California faces an estimated $13 billion budget hole next year, but the hammerlock on hiring that Gov. Jerry Brown announced Feb. 15 is over for nearly all departments and offices under his authority, with a few notable exceptions.

The executive order that froze hiring, touted by the administration as another sign that Brown was dead serious about cutting government costs, contained a key provision that allowed departments to take on new employees.

Here's the pertinent paragraph in the original legalese:

"The Department of Finance will work with agencies and departments to develop targets for budgetary reductions in lieu of the hiring restrictions. Departments that achieve their target budget reductions, as determined by the director of the Department of Finance, will be exempted from the provisions of this executive order."

Translation: When the administration says a department has cut costs deeply enough, it can start hiring.

And not just wishful-thinking-honest-we'll-make-them-just-trust-us cuts that sometimes float on the state's books as savings.

"We're talking about actual savings," Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer said. Consolidating operations, purging permanent positions and cutting operating expenses qualify for consideration toward the saving goals.

Palmer's department, for example, is trimming its rent costs by moving 420 of its auditors about seven blocks, from offices on Capitol Mall to Finance's main space on L Street.

The $368,000 that the office consolidation will save each year counts toward those "budgetary reductions in lieu of hiring restrictions."

Palmer didn't know Wednesday which of the 150 entities under Brown's authority had hit their savings targets first.

But he did know who hasn't hit them yet: Corrections and Rehabilitation (65,000 employees), Cal Fire (6,000) and the Health and the Human Services Agency (31,000), which oversees 15 departments and offices, including Mental Health.

In other words, about half the state workforce under Brown's authority.

So how well has the freeze worked? California employed about 228,000 full-time and part-time workers last month, according to state payroll data, down from 234,000 when Brown took office in January and nearly 8,000 fewer than in October 2010.

The administration hasn't hidden the hiring thaw, but it hasn't exactly proclaimed it, either. Palmer cautioned that Brown could extend the freeze again as he searches for budget savings next year.

Announcing that the state is hanging out a "help wanted" sign, even if only for some departments that have slashed costs, isn't nearly as sexy – and probably doesn't play as well with the public – as declaring a hiring freeze.

Unless, of course, you're looking for a state job.

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Call The Bee's Jon Ortiz, (916) 321-1043. Read his blog, The State Worker, at sacbee.com/blogs.

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