Here’s North Miami City Attorney Jeff Cazeau at the first Budget Hearing held on September 9, 2019 after trying to get Mayor Philippe Bien-Aime to understand a concept.
Any concept.
Here’s City Attorney Jeff Cazeau four and a half hours into the second Budget Hearing on September 17, 2019, which is still ongoing as we speak.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Or, in North Miami’s case, A DEFICIT OF EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS!
We’ll have a full report on the meeting when we recover from the shock of this Three Ring Circus.
Stephanie
Lol! At least he is getting paid to attend the Three Ring Circus while sitting on a comfortable chair.
So $8 million disappeared and the city manager got a pay increase to where he is now making almost 1/4 of a million dollars and the council gave themselves a 20% raise. No wonder everyone Galvin, Bien Aime and Desulme fought so hard to win the latest campaign.
In the past two years Galvin has always been the first one to motion to pass the salary increase and has been the constant denominator in City Hall for the past 20 years. Think about that. A
Wolf in Sheep’s clothing. First one to say let’s stay up to 3am to get this resolved but was the only one who wanted to rush through the meeting and had issues with the others wanting to take their time and try to do things for the residents to understand. This is his last term so he doesn’t give a shit, he just cares about getting his 20% raise and making sure that Duke doesn’t get fired for the 8 million Budget deficit. Duke another constant denominator at city hall and the root of all the Nepotism and Corruption. Why hasn’t Scott worn a wire in all his talks with Duke? Why not say something when Duke overlooked well qualified code employees to hire unqualified but good looking part time employee? He is a wolf that’s why.
I would like the city attorney, or the A C L U or some lawyer to give a legal opinion to the city and all of the citizens on the legality of the thousands of tax payers dollars that have been given to churches and religious organizations over the years. How in in anyway or circumstance can this be fair in the past, present, or in the future? If you are a church, temple, mosque, or an atheist how do you get an equal and fair share. They do not have the right to decide. How do we get what was given away back? Give to whom ever you want from your own check book or volunteer where you want. It is an individual’s choice based on personal beliefs and feelings. I would like somebody to give us all an HONEST answer once and for all. Yes I feel his (Jeff’s) pain. I can’t believe this crap goes on in other municipalities. Maybe I am wrong. I would like somebody to show us examples here in Dade County where others give away money in this amount and way, or where they don’t. I await you or somebody else to kindly answer my question.
Sincerely,
William Simpson Jr.
I don’t know about all the cities in Miami-Dade County, but I can tell you that in North Miami Beach, that crap doesn’t fly. At least two of the freshman Commissioners put religious institutions on their “wish lists” for the City Manager to consider when preparing the budget, and they were quickly shot down. In their defense, however, they did request that those expenses be included in the budget instead of doing what the North Miami council members do – simply dip into their own contingency funds (i.e., public money) to support their personal favorite religious institutions. By doing so, they are probably hoping no one will dig deeply into the city checkbook and find out. They were obviously wrong about that.
While we’re on the topic of the city checkbook, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say publicly but never got around to mentioning it in a blog. Now’s as good a time as any.
We all know that North Miami has a slew of problems, but the city website is not one of them. In all my years of researching public records, I give massive kudos to North Miami’s website, both in terms of ease of navigation, and the literal mountains of information that is posted. It may seem odd to say, but the fact that the city’s financial records are so accessible and transparent, it makes it that much easier to find questionable transactions. If I had not studied the check register and questioned some of the payments, I would not have found all those checks to churches, etc., or even known about the “Miss North Miami Scholarship Pageant” payments. That was such a red flag I had to make a public records request and was provided the Chamber invoices. I can’t help but wonder how much other stuff is hidden under “misnamed” items.
That being said, however, the North Miami website is probably the best municipal website I have ever visited, and I’ve been to dozens upon dozens of others. I wish every other city in Miami-Dade County would be like North Miami’s.
Kudos should be offered to our city attorney, Jeff Cazeau, and our city clerk, Vanessa Joseph, for sitting, listening, working, and acting as total professionals during our whole budget process from the initial budget workshop meeting/fiasco back on July 10, 2019 to the first budget hearing held on September 9, 2019 and second budget hearing held on September 17, 2019.
In this year budget process, I will give credit to the city administration under our city manager, Larry Spring, and his new budget director, Rosalind Ray Morgan, for printing and disclosing the revenue sources of our city budget. However, we do need improvement in categorizing and disclosing the correct fund name of our city’s revenue income sources (i.e. Biscayne Landing lease payment) and our city’s expense items (i.e. $ 75K subsidy to NoMi Chamber and $ 20K subsidy to Haitian American Chamber).
Special recognition is extended to Council Member Carol Keys for advocating for the reduction in our discretionary fund and our special events fund during our 2nd budget hearings. In addition, we must recognize Council Member Alix DeSulme for expressing his concerns with our labor expenses as being 57.3% of our city budget. Plus, we want to thank all council members who eliminated the red light camera option as a possible revenue source in our city budget as it is was very unpopular program.
However, we heard the no responses along with total silence from a majority on the dais where we question and inquire about eliminating their proposed pay raises incorporated in this adopted budget from our city council members. We still do not know the exact amount of their proposed raises as it was not disclosed as an individual line item for each council member and for our mayor. Whereas, most city residents along with city workers are receiving annual average raises between 3.0% and 3.3% for last four years. We have this proposal for our city council members and our mayor … Lets adopt these pay raises from our city council members for their last base pay increase of $ 47,910 in FY 17-18 budget, you are awarded a 3.1% increase with the FY 18-19 budget so your salary is $ 49,395 … then you are awarded 3.2% increase with the FY 19-20 budget so your current salary is $ 50,975 … Now, Mayor Philippe Bien-Aime. … Lets do your evaluation with same logic, your last base salary increase for your newly elected position is $ 59,880 from your predecessor .. you are awarded 3.1% increase with the FY 18-19 budget so your salary is $ 61,736 … then you are awarded 3.2% increase with the FY 19-20 budget so your current salary is $ 63,711 .. These salary increases are pretty good for part time elected positions compare to previous standards of $ 5,000 for mayor and $ 3,600 for city council members during Mayor Loffredo’s days.
Our elected officials should make a sacrifice and forgo their salary increases in this year budget! It will help balance or provide for a surplus result with our city budget!!