At this point in the process, I am opposed to the outsourcing of trash collection. In fact, there are some compelling reasons why this entire process should be halted at this time. I am disturbed that such a major decision for the City seems to be moving along quickly without a full perspective as to the long term consequences. I am also concerned that lobbyists and lobbying are driving the pace of this decision without much regard for the people of this City. Here are my main concerns:
1. Despite what was said after my talk at the Council meeting, there is not a specific actuarial study that addresses the laying off of 23 to 28 employees. The study in place is the regular annual valuation study of the pension plan and the City’s financial obligation to the plan. The reality is that if you lay off these employees, there is going to be a specific and long term effect on the amount of money the City will need to contribute to the pension plan to make up for the loss of contributions. These dollar amounts need to be considered in quoting what the City will be “saving” every year. I am concerned that staff and elected officials making a long term, major financial and philosophical decision are doing so without obtaining all the facts with which to make that decision.
2. The likelihood is that many of the senior employees will use their bumping rights to move into the jobs that will remain with the City. This could mean that the highest paid employees could continue with their current salaries and benefits while performing a job that normally has a much lower salary. Are any of these potential salary adjustments being factored into the “savings” number?
3. It seems very politically expedient to state that no employees will lose their jobs as they will all be hired by the trash hauler taking over the services. The reality is that the hauler needs these employees in the interim so their local experience can be used. However, there is certainly no guarantee that these former City employees will continue to have employment with the hauler in either the short term or for a longer period of time. I also realize and I think you all do also that when dealing with the private sector, there are no real guarantees that can be followed through on.
4. If you decide to go through with this change, be prepared to lower the sanitation fees currently being charged to match the actual charges. This would mean that the entire cost would need to be determined and the fees lowered along with these costs. This means that any “savings” would actually be in the hands of the people who pay for the service, not the City. If you decide not to do this, it borders on fraud if you bill customers for a “sanitation fee” that goes to pay other expenses from other departments in the City.
5. My last point is one from the consumer perspective. If you give the City Manager the ok to negotiate a contract with a private hauler, the consumers or users of the service have little or no say in this process. They are neither heard nor represented at any point in the process and unless the contract negotiations are done in public, there is really zero transparency in the matter. We simply get the see the finalized contract that is up for a vote.
I truly feel that a matter such as this deserves better from the City. It is my hope that someone has the wherewithal to step up and ask the important questions that at this point are not answered. I certainly would welcome your input and perspective.
Chuck Cook
It took the Mayor & Council about 5 minutes to lay off 17 Police Officers, and if they could have outsourced the PD to MDPD, that decision probably would have taken even less time to decide. It should be no surprise that they would move forward with outsourcing sanitation since many sanitation companies would jump at the opportunity. The only way to stop this is if more voters get involved and get rid of the Mayor & Council that we currently have. The residents are paying the same taxes and getting less service. It’s a no brainer. They need to go!!!
This process is being rushed? Are you friggin kidding?
Sure, let’s study the issue for another 2 years. Let’s hire another consultant for $50,000 to study this more. Let’s fire our City Manager and have the next one (the 4th) and a new set of finance and procurement directors study this issue yet again.
Let’s just throw TWO MILLION DOLLARS a year out the door. We have already thrown FOUR MILLION DOLLARS out the door by not doing the first go round.
We have outrageously high taxes but we receive crappy services compared to other cities.
This is the result of years and years of Council members and city managers giving away our money. They looked the other way, because it wasn’t THEIR MONEY!
We finally have a few Council Members and a City Manager who aren’t afraid of a few “civic activists” (in their own minds) making the same ole tired noises when ever change is proposed and the money spigot might be turned off.
Folks, our city’s Police Department has a $2.2 million deficit. PLUS, we need a lot more police officers, we need NEW police cars, we need to restore and add policing programs.
That is a lot more money needed just for PUBLIC SAFETY!
So, where do we get this money, AND lower taxes?
Outsource garbage and every other service except maybe police that will save us money and give us half-way decent services.
I would even favor outsourcing police to the county if that saved us money. Plenty of cities use Metro PD and are quite satisfied with the service.
Plenty of cities have private company garbage collection and are quite satisfied.
I just hope our City Council doesn’t allow a handful of self-appointed “civic activists” to prevent our city from saving two million dollars a year.
Lol, how crazy is that! 2 years ago they had to lay off 17 police officers because the pd was 2 million in the hole. Through attrition the pd is down about 20 officers and it’s 2.2 million in the hole now. So if the pd lays off another 15 officers, is the pd gonna be 4 million in the hole. Funny how in the private sector, when they lay off their profits grow. Seems in NMB when they lay off, their debts grow. That’s some strange math, lol!!!
As a former assistant city manager in a similar size city in Palm Beach County, our city went through all the twists and gyrations that you are going though here. To answer some of Mr. Cook’s concerns, I offer the following:
1. Your concern that the city will lose funding of its pension plan if employees are laid off doesn’t hold water. Unless your pension plan is a giant Ponzi scheme where current employees are funding those retiring, then eliminating current employees allows the city to use the funds they were contributing to those employees to further fund the current plan. New pension rules will soon be taking affect that will require additional funding of all pensions and the city will need the funding to cover this increased amount for its retirees and current employees.
2. While your scenario is true, the reduction of the remaining staff will still reduce the overall cost of the sanitation budget for services. We found that to be true in the un-named city I worked for.
3. While your scenario here is also true, bear in mind any viable business or government agency cannot structure their budgets so that they extremely benefit the employees at the expense and financial health of the company or municipality. A city has to be run like a business where cost-effective initiatives should be an ongoing process. Government is not structured in a cost effective manner that allows it to compete dollar for dollar with a private transportation company, landscaping company, or bulk waste hauler, just to name a few. Union work rules, over-supervision, excessive sick leave, all are reasons why governments cannot compete effectively in these arenas.
Private companies reward and promote employees who seek to better themselves with great work ethic and get rid of those that aren’t pulling their weight. Government agencies can’t seem to do either of the above as effectively, thus making outsourcing a viable alternative for cities whose budgets are in the red.
4. Your scenario is partially true. If your sanitation dept. is an enterprise fund, then all revenue collected can only be utilized for sanitation services and infrastructure. However, a substantial portion of thse funds can be re-directed to the general fund in the form of a management and legal fees imposed by the city manager to cover their respective oversight of the sanitation dept. Additional funds could be gained by imposing costs associated with the use of city property to support the sanitation department infrastructure, so substantial funding could still be directed to the general fund to cover city management expenses.
5. Your scenario here is unrealistic. City or private business cannot be conducted with the public involved in the details of every transaction. It would be like having your in-laws scrutinize every expenditure you make prior to making them. Won’t work. You elected 7 of your fellow citizens to do the best job they can in getting you the best deal they can on everything. They in turn hired a city manager, attorney, and clerk, hopefully finding the best ones available. These are the people who should be charged with having the right team, along with a consultant with expertise in the arena, to obtain the best contracts for the city. You can’t have activists, borderline schizophrenics, and bored people with nothing to do have a say in how your city service contracts are drafted. Having said that, knowledgeable citizens can still take part in the process by writing a letter with their specific suggestions or requesting a meeting with the management team to discuss their input. But there has to be a limit on this interaction.
I wish your city well in making the tough decision that needs to be made, but I also have to agree with the previous comments that this issue has been studied to death in your city and now its time to get off the pot.
Five bingos. Perfect aim.
You win the World Cup.
Huh, I will try to explain this so that you and everyone else understands the math.
First, those 17 cops might not have had to been laid off if we had outsourced sanitation two years ago. The president of the police union recently chided the city council for not privatizing garbage because the cops were the ones getting squeezed the most because of budgetary issues.
The most recent $2.2 million “deficit” (a.k.a. gaping budget hole) in the police department is the amount that we must now extract from taxpayers (you, me, the guy behind the tree) to maintain the same exact police services we now have. We previously got this $2.2 million from the Law Enforcement Trust Fund (LETF). LETF money is confiscated from alleged bad guys via forfeitures of cash and property. It’s considered “free” money to taxpayers.
The federal and state governments have cracked down on how LETF money can be spent. Apparently someone or multiple someones at City Hall were using this LETF money in a way that wasn’t quite 100% Kosher. NMB can’t spend this $2.2 million from LETF money any more. Party’s over.
Now the City Administration must either find that $2.2 million from somewhere else (raise taxes, cut expenses), or make more cuts to the police department.
The City Manager wisely, in my opinion, chose not to cut police services or lay off more cops. She also has, wisely in my opinion, not asked for a tax increase (you have got to be from another planet if you think NMB residents can endure higher taxes).
What else can she do? Cut expenses. Privatizing sanitation saves $2 million every year. That is $10 million over the next five years. It still doesn’t make up for the millions we flushed down the toilet by not outsourcing two years ago. It’s a start, however.
We really need to be talking about what happens if we do not privatize garbage.
For starters, the sanitation department will have to be severely pruned. Buzz saw pruned.
The aforementioned $50,000 “consultant” recommend firing about a dozen garbage workers, and cutting our pickups to weekly instead of twice weekly. I’m fine with firing the workers, but I’m not down with cutting my service.
We also would be fined if we put out too much trash in the swales. Fines are a great revenue source (red light cameras, too).
Our police officers would be hit over the head again. They won’t get back their take-home cars, no raises for God knows when, no return to receiving allowances for uniforms, etc., etc., etc. No replacement of the decrepit police fleet.
Worst of all, we won’t be able to hire more cops. I have heard we need to hire 10-20 more cops. Good luck with that.
This boils down to either outsourcing garbage, or else cutting garbage and police services.
Does anyone really want to reject outsourcing garbage and instead cut our garbage and police services?
Didn’t think so.
I find this whole outsourcing thing to be cover-your-ass politics at its worst.
I point to none other than the actions of our esteemed Councilwomen Phyllis Smith and Beth Spiegel. If you recall, two years ago both of these councilwomen insisted the city hire an outside consultant to study the solid waste department.
I urge people to watch the tape of that council meeting if you don’t believe me.
We hired this consultant for 50k. This consultant analyzed everything. They concluded that outsourcing will save taxpayers money and maintain service levels. They recommended that if the city wanted to keep everything in-house, then we should lay off 1/3 of the garbage workers and cut back to once weekly pickups.
Now the dynamic duo of Smith and Spiegel are going around town saying the study was no good! We need to do another study! We are going too fast with this process! I don’t like the process! The process is tainted! Bad process!
Ladies, this was YOUR STUDY! YOUR PROCESS! OWN IT!
You two should have voted to outsource two years ago. We would have saved millions of dollars and we wouldn’t have been forced to fire 17 cops! We wouldn’t now face having to fire even more cops or cut police patrols and new hires.
Basta ya! as the saying goes.
2+2=4 just laid out the best explanation I have heard about the financial impact of this decision.
Thank you.
Mr. Guest Columnist,
If you think that the sanitation issue is “moving along quickly” I would say to that, ha ha ha. What moves quickly in NMB other than, um, um, um, never mind. Come to think of it, nothing moves quickly around these parts. 2 to 2 1/2 years is not what I would call quickly. I’ll also add that in my opinion, lobbyists do not have any special power to drive the pace of the city’s decision making process. If that were the case we would certainly have a problem and I don’t see this group of individuals allowing a lobbyist to sway them, I just don’t see it happening from management to staff to council.
Your first concern with regards to an actuarial study makes little sense. With fewer employees, how could it cost the city more money? Just eliminating the pension contributions that the city pays its employees will cut expenses, let alone the elimination of salaries. Actuaries cost a lot of money, and to hire one to find out what the long term effect would be is a waste of money. Hire me for free and I could tell you the long term effect will be a positive one.
Your concern about employees losing their jobs has been addressed many times at the meetings where the discussion on outsourcing sanitation has been on the agenda. While negotiations are yet to happen, it is known that that is a priority to the staff and elected officials. There is no reason for a sanitation company not to hire a group of individuals with track records of good service and ones already familiar with the territory.
Your fourth point brings up fraud, again another comment about the F word. I believe the new city attorney, seasoned in government law would not allow such malfeasance to occur. I have been told that fees collected for sanitation can be used for expenditures outside of the public works department. There is no law that prohibits this. I often wonder why everyone thinks they are an authority on everything.
And your final comments from the consumer perspective. How can you say that the consumers or users of the service have little or no say in the process when public meetings are held that allow public comment. I have even watched Mr. Cook at these meetings and many others as well. You have a say and you are heard and if ever there was a lack of transparency in our governing body it certainly ended with this new round of elected officials, the procurement director and especially this new city manager.
We need to stop the back seat driving in NMB that has prohibited the progress the city needs to make and many of our city leaders are concentrating on. The slogan for the new direction of our city, “It’s Our Time” doesn’t mean it’s our time to meddle again and again and again. It means it’s our time to move forward and shine for once in the last 40 years.
1. Why are we the only city in the NE quadrant of the county that does not seem to be recovering from the economic meltdown?
2. Why is raising taxes such a horrible thing? The cost of absolutely everything is going up. Why should the cost of running a city be any different?
Answer to your question:
1. In the decades past, the City Council made a lot of real estate deals amongst themselves, including the city attorney, in our city. One of them became the largest property owner in the city and still is. Since they were having such a great time together, they also voted benefits for themselves like free lifetime health care paid for by the taxpayers. Not wanting anyone to blow the whistle on them, they made backroom deals with the police union and other employee unions to give them lucrative wage and benefit contracts, especially at election time. Police officers had a contract that allowed them to receive pensions based upon the highest two year salary of their entire employment, including overtime. This caused many of the police to work massive hours of overtime in that two year period for the sole purpose of pumping up their pensions. Many retired in their 40’s with big fat pensions. It was called “The Happy Time” at the City. But like everything, all good times come to an end. It became time to pay for all the excessive spending that took place. So much so that there wasn’t any money left over to make any capital improvements. All revenue derived from property taxes went directly to pay for the lucrative pensions. At the same time, many homeowners fearful of the rash of immigrants moving in, moved out. Many immigrants with no incentive from the city to improve their homes, let them run down, many too busy just trying to make a living to have any money left over to replace a roof or repave a driveway. The city too caring or too complacent to force them to do it, let it ride.
2. The City of NMB tax rate, when the police station and Proud Neighborhood bond debt service is added to the property tax millage rate, is already among the highest of all municipalities in Miami-Dade.
While you may feel just fine with having your property taxes raised, most others don’t, especially when they know that ALL of the property taxes they already pay, go directly to fund the pensions of former city employees. The city can, and should, find efficiencies within its current inefficient budget, which I believe is the recommendation of many who have commented in this blog. However, feel free to make a voluntary cash donation to the City of NMB if it makes you feel better.
Wow Stephanie, between this blog post and the last you have a lot of conversation and voices on your blog. That’s my only comment – great to see (read!). Congrats of some kind are in order… great to see this level of input of citizens too.
Thanks, Barbix. I was hoping to generate dialog so that the council can read the comments. It is my hope that whatever decision they decide on will be in the best interest of all concerned.
Ray’s Revenge nailed it. Our city has had years and years of fiscally reckless governance until very recently. The previous councils and administrations had a very expensive sense of entitlement with our money.
There was no benefit they would not bestow on our employees. There was no overly generous work rule they wouldn’t concede.
It’s an absolute fact that today, every single dollar we receive in property taxes goes directly to pay employee pensions. We still have “last in, first out” rules instead of “performance-based” rules that make it nearly impossible to get rid of the slackers when we need to trim the fat.
It’s an indisputable fact that our Police Department faces a 2.2 Million Dollar deficit. It’s an indisputable fact that our city probably will face another Million Dollars in deficits on top of that. It’s an indisputable fact that our city needs to hire at least another 16 police officers ASAP.
During all of this trash talk, the most galling comments have been made by our former council members and mayors. They are trying to re-write history by opposing outsourcing.
The absolute truth is that these former elected officials left our city in the shitter financially. There is no other way to view the numbers unless you have an agenda of some sort or are just plain stupid.
The next time one of these former council members open their mouth, just ignore them. They are trying to convince us that everything is just fine, that we have money to burn, that there’s no need to outsource or change anything. They are trying to convince us that they aren’t the ones to blame for our current mess.
The garbage employees and the handful of actual NMB residents who profess sympathy for them should be blaming the former council members for the city being forced to outsource garbage.
The current City Council and Administration is doing the best they can with the mess they inherited.
Outsource garbage now! Outsource anything else that makes economic sense! Give us a break already.
“It’s an absolute fact that today, every single dollar we receive in property taxes goes directly to pay employee pensions.”
I’ll not comment on the veracity of the rest of your assertions, but this statement is just twaddle, and its histrionic hyperbole reduces everything else you state to senseless blathering. You have clearly never looked at a single budget, which is posted online for all the world to see. If all the city’s tax revenues go exclusively to fund pensions, how on earth do they fund salaries and operating expenses? Bake sales? Money trees? Pots of gold at the end of rainbows? You’re an idiot.
No, actually YOU are the Idiot. If you truly did look at the entire City budget you would note that the TIFF money collected (property taxes) for 2013 matched within $100,000 the amount the city had to fund in employee pensions for 2013. If you also had any sense, you would also know the city receives revenue from other sources such as the utility tax everyone pays on their electric and phone bills. There is also some revenue sharing from the County for various departments such as public services. The largest contributor in funds other than property taxes is the “profit” we make from our water plant, where we charge customers outside the City a 25% surcharge plus an overage to our own residents so that money can be contributed into our general fund.
I keep hearing meeting after meeting from Mr. Kazan how the sanitation department “makes” the city money. The number “$800,000 profit” keeps coming up.
The City’s Sanitation Dept., like the sanitation department of any other city, is a monopoly that sets the fees charged at a set point above expenses to ensure there is a positive cash flow back to the city. That “profit” doesn’t take into account the amount the residents and businesses are being charged. It only is a number that exceeds the expenses incurred to run the department. If the expenses in the department were to be reduced substantially, and the chargeback rate (the amount we pay) remains the same, the end result would be a $2.8 million dollar “profit” that could be paid into to the city’s general fund. This is what Mr. Kazan fails to point out in his one-sided sermons to the Council.
The City Manager and Council fully understand what the numbers are, including the amount the public is being charged for waste collection, and need the increased amount to fill holes in other areas of the budget. Otherwise they would be forced to lay-off employees to balance the budget.