Wednesday, June 9, 2010

LET THE BATTLE BEGIN

Summer is upon us once again and many of you lend your thoughts to pools, beaches, Bar B Q's and the ever popular stay-cations. What you are not thinking is that Summer is the time to set the 2010 - 2011 Fort Lauderdale City budget. Perhaps you should.

The City Commission has set Wednesday, July 7 as the time for City Manager George Gretsas to present his proposed budget for the upcoming year. By law the budget MUST be balanced. How do we balance a budget that is set to have over $45 million dollar deficit.

Questions abound. Where do we cut? Where do we draw money from? What services need to be reduced or eliminated? I wish I had all the answers, sadly I do not. I am on the Budget Advisory Board (BAB), a responsibility I do not take lightly. The BAB has been presented with interesting and informative presentations from the Police, Fire/Rescue and Parks & Recreation departments. Next week we will hear from the Public Works department.

These presentations included the administrative structure, programs offered, and from the Budget Office, a breakdown of the line items and costs associated with them. Each department provided an in-depth analysis of where they have specifically reduced their budgets. With salary being the largest part of all the budgets, each department has streamlined via attrition, elimination of empty budgeted positions, reduction of overtime. At the direction of the City Commission, not a single employee was laid off or furloughed.

How can we overcome a $45 million dollar deficit. One quick way is to raise the milage rate. This we already know is the third rail of city politics, and the Mayor has stated that this will not be done. We also know that the City Commission's goal is zero layoffs once again. As in the current budget, the City will be dipping into its' Reserve Fund, also called the rainy day fund.

By national standards, a reserve fund should not be larger than 12% of a cities annual budget. Right now we are at a 28% reserve. In 2009, the BAB by resolution requested that the Fort Lauderdale City Commission refrain from dipping into the reserve fund. The use of the rainy day fund not only feasible but almost necessary to achieve the reduction of the reserve level that the city auditor recommends. Is this a smart move?, I am not sure. According to predictions this may be one of the most active hurricane seasons in a long time. We may need the reserves to cover costs associated with a major wind storm such as occurred with Hurricane WIlma.

Another suggestion being bounced around the BAB is the outsourcing of some of the City's services. Recently, the City of Pembroke Pines announced the reduction of 250 employees from its payroll through outsourcing. These 250 will now become employees of a private company as opposed to being civil servants. The citizens of the City of Fort Lauderdale deserve better. We have some of the greatest and most loyal employes by far. I am adamantly opposed to outsourcing any of our cit's services.

Though not a great example, Broward County has implemented furlough days. In conjunction with set 3 day weekends, the County has chosen to close all non essential (police & fire) county services. This gives the County employees a four day holiday, though sadly an unpaid day. I am not totally opposed to this idea, but certainly I am interested as to the cost savings by doing the same. (ducking from the rotten tomato's being tossed in my direction).

What other measures can and should we take, I am not totally sure. I do know that as a member of the Budget Advisory Board, I will be vigilant in my duty to assist and advise the Mayor and City Commissioners in their quest to balance the Fort Lauderdale City Budget.

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