The recall of former Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez and the election of Carlos Gimenez to replace him is proof (in my opinion) that the citizens are mad as hell and they’re not gonna take it anymore.  People are just plain fed up with having their hard earned tax dollars spent on government waste and excess.  Mr. Alvarez’ fourteen percent property tax hike followed by the generous raises he gave to his cronies was more than the residents could take, especially in an economy when so many are literally losing their homes.  Imagine scraping every penny together to keep your mortgage payments barely up to date, and then losing everything because you can’t pay the property tax increase.  That’s just plain wrong.  How Mr. Alvarez didn’t see this coming is a real mystery.

In an article published in CBSMiami.com yesterday (http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011/06/29/mayor-elect-gimenez-lets-get-to-work/), it was reported that Mr. Gimenez announced, “I’m going to cut the salary and benefits of the mayor by 50 percent,” Gimenez said. “I’m not going to have a car allowance. I’m not going to have two SUV’s. I’m not going to have people driving me around.”

Talk about leading by example!  I don’t know about you guys, but that impressed the hell out of me.  And I do not impress easily.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know that we are in the middle of an economic crisis of epic proportions.  North Miami Beach is one one of the thousands of municipalities all over the country that are facing dire budget problems, while public employees are going to bear the brunt of the cuts.  All too often the players at the top of the food chain are the ones wielding the ax, while the lowest tier workers who make the least amount of money have the most to lose when that ax comes down.

You all know I’m no fan of public unions, but I have always been the champion of the worker.  I’ve also been known to say a few hundred times or so that there are far too many at the top of the food chain who are taking too much of the pie and don’t do nearly enough to justify their salaries.  I mean seriously, how many assistant managers and assistants to the assistant managers does a city the size of North Miami Beach need anyway?  Seriously!

Mayor Carlos Gimenez literally put his money where his mouth is.  He knows there is just so much of the pie to go around.  He knows that thousands of county employees are facing either salary cuts or pink slips.  He also knows that in this economy everyone must make sacrifices, including and especially, those at the top.  I applaud him and I’m definitely happy I voted for him!

Now let’s see if the folks who run the City of North Miami Beach will follow Mayor Gimenez’ lead.  Quite a few residents have mentioned that the Mayor and Council should start by voluntarily cutting their salaries.  A couple of them already have done so before they were even asked.  I wonder if the others will follow suit.  A few other residents stated that the council’s three employees, i.e., the city manager, city attorney and city clerk, should also take voluntary cuts.  I know the manager and the clerk are already making less than their predecessors and are making salaries commensurate with their education and abilities.  Honestly, I’m not sure if they should take cuts, but I really can’t say as I don’t have the exact figures.  I do know they probably deserve their salaries as the both of them are doing great jobs.  Again, this is my non-expert, humble opinion.

The city attorney, Darcee Siegel, however, is making a grand total of $295,980.00 (including benefits) per year.  That’s a lot of scratch!  She also has two, count ’em, two assistants.  This is not including the tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) the city pays to outside labor, pension, CRA, and a few other assorted attorneys that Darcee & Co. can’t handle because that stuff is not within their collective realm of expertise.  To her credit, I do hear that Darcee is a barracuda in the court room, and manages to win most of the lawsuits against the city.  On the flip side, we already know she sucked at choosing which side her loyalties lie when it was a choice between the now former mayor, Myron Rosner, and the residents who actually fund her salary.  Her “legal opinion” regarding Myron’s campaign bus bench signs (or in DarceeWorld, Street Furniture), wasn’t worth the paper it was typed on.  Maybe the city should have hired outside counsel to protect our interests about that issue!

Based on the sum total of Darcee’s value to the We the People of North Miami Beach, I’d say she should be the first in line to take a voluntary pay cut.  I understand her contract is coming up for renewal soon.  If I were on the council, I’d offer her fifty cents on the dollar to re-up, ‘ cuz that’s what she’s worth to me.  It’s not as if there’s a shortage of lawyers in Florida in case we had to replace her.  I’m betting there’d be a line around the corner of attorneys with municipal law expertise that would love to have her job at half the price.  I’m just saying.

Look, this is the deal here.  In the private sector, a company is in business to make money.  If the business can’t afford to keep an employee, that employee is let go.  This is just the reality of the business world.  A governmental entity is not supposed to be a profitable enterprise, so making money isn’t its goal.  By the same token, however, a government is not supposed to operate at a deficit, either.  Ideally, a government’s budget should simply balance, which means it needs to determine how much revenue it can reasonably expect and then figure out how to distribute that revenue in an equitable manner so that the residents are serviced and the employees are paid.  Even if there’s a zero balance at the end of the fiscal year, the budget is considered to be a success.  Note:  This is not including emergency reserves, pension reserves and other contingency funds, but I’m just talking about basic operating expenses here to keep it simple.  Money in, money out.  At the end of the day, we just need to break even.

The problem is that revenue is way down from previous years, but our expenses have gone up.  Without cutting the spending, there will never be a balanced budget.  Especially if we have to borrow money to cover the shortfall – money that we’ll probably never be able to pay back barring a miracle.  If the city is constantly operating in the red year after year, eventually it will have no choice but to become insolvent and declare bankruptcy.

Think about it.  Could you run your household like that?  What if you had to keep using credit cards to pay your every day expenses because your income wasn’t enough to cover your bills?  What happens if you can’t pay back the credit cards in full and the balances keep going up?  Then what happens when you reach your credit card limit and can’t borrow any more money?  At that point, you’re screwed.

Well, it’s exactly the same thing with the City of North Miami Beach.  From what I understand, it’s pretty much all about to come crashing down and something has got to give.  Cuts need to be made.  Period.  I’m not sure why this is such a hard concept to understand when the numbers don’t lie.

Now I’m one of those people who believes those cuts should start at the top of the food chain.  County Mayor Carlos Gimenez has already taken the first step and is leading by example.  At the risk of sounding like a Democrat, I believe that anyone making six figures at City Hall should be the first in line to be the sacrificial lambs.  Those employees should show good faith and sacrifice for (I really can’t believe I’m about to say this) “the common good.”  (Oh, THAT hurt!)  But the truth is, we cannot afford to continue to pay these salaries and still keep what I consider to be the most valuable employees – the ones to work hard and provide the necessary services to the residents.

Like I said, running a governmental entity is not supposed to be profitable.  A government exists SOLELY to serve the public and take care of the residents’ basic needs.  What we need are police protection, water, sanitation, safe and serviceable roads and sidewalks, parks and community centers for starters.  What we don’t need is a bevy of high priced lawyers or overpaid employees who end up embezzling millions of our hard to come by tax dollars.  Seriously, that crap should never have happened!  What good were all those department heads and managers and assistant managers and assistants to the assistants on the payroll when no one was watching the checkbook?  Heads should have rolled!

If any of those “top tier” employees don’t want to accept the cuts, they’re free to go look for jobs in the private sector where their services will command higher salaries.  After all, the City of North Miami Beach is NOT a Fortune 500 company.  It’s a public municipality, for crying out loud.  We are not supposed to be in the business of making people wealthy on public service.  That’s what the private sector is for.  Get it?

The people who run the City of North Miami Beach need to take a good hard look at these basic truths and start getting realistic about balancing the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”