With one-third of the current fiscal year over, it appears that North Miami city officials have learned absolutely nothing from their mistakes of the previous three years.

Let’s take a look at how well all that fiscal “management” is working out for them.

We’ll start with last year’s budget deficit, the one former Assistant Budget Director Terry Henley warned about, which everyone at City Hall would apparently like you to forget.

According to the final figures on the city’s “Financial Transparency” portal, the shortfall ending up being a whopping $6,061,799.

In his Fiscal Year 2018-19 Adopted Budget, former City Manager Larry Spring projected revenues of $73,818,539.

The actual Fiscal Year 2018-19 Revenues, however, were only $61,739,465, or $12,079,074 less than he expected.

And while the Fiscal Year 2018-19 Expenses of $67,801,264 were about six million less than the $73,822,529 he projected, North Miami still ended up in the red by $6,061,799.

Not that this should surprise anyone.

Nor should it surprise anyone that as of today, according to North Miami’s Real-Time Debt Clock™ , the city was already in the hole for $5,042,281.76.

So far this year, North Miami’s General Fund has received 31% of its projected revenues, but already spent 38% of its projected expenses.

Most of the $22,674,405 received so far was from the 2019 ad valorem, or real estate, taxes already collected in the amount of $19,962,974.  The city still needs to collect an additional $4,164,456 to stay within the budgeted revenue of $24,127,430 for ad valorem.

The real estate tax revenue is included in Non-Departmental revenue totaling $58,395,357.  The remaining $34,267,927 of Non-Departmental revenue comes from Special Revenue Funds, specifically the Pension Obligation Loan Repayment (see page 24 of the city’s Fiscal Year 2019-20 Adopted Budget).

Unfortunately, if last year’s shortfall of $10,998,733 for Non-Departmental revenue is any indication, the projected FY 2019-20 revenue for this category is once again nothing more than wishful thinking.

In order to stay within budget this year, the city still needs to collect additional total revenue of $48,476,784, a large portion of which is expected to come from the Building Department in the form of permit fees.

This is, of course, assuming that all the development projects currently in the works throughout the city will be completed by the end of this fiscal year.

Apparently, that same type of wishful thinking was in play last year when the Building Department’s projected revenue of $4,404,283 fell short by $1,810,910.

But, hey, let’s do it again this year and hope for the best.

At the rate the city is bleeding money so far this year, it’s on course to practically double last year’s deficit of $6,061,799.

For example, you might remember the September 17, 2019 North Miami 2nd Budget Hearing when the Mayor and Council voted to pass a budget after cutting Special Events from the original proposed budget of $700,000 down to $400,000, including $50,000 for the WinterNational parade.

Oddly, in the final FY 1029-20 Adopted Budget, Larry Spring managed to covertly increase that amount by $262,476 more than his bosses had verbally approved.

But that’s not even the worst of it.

According to the Transparency Portal’s Expenses by Category as of February 8, 2020, we found that the city has already spent 82% of its projected Operating Expenses.

Operating Expenses include essential items like as advertising, contractual services, liability insurance, bank charges, equipment, outside wages, public relations, rents and leases, travel, uniforms, and the like.  When we expanded the Operating Expenses tab, we noted that most of those expenses are so far comfortably within budget, except for Special Events.

Imagine our surprise when we discovered that not only has the City of North Miami has already gone way over budget by spending $755,111 on Special Events only one-third of the way through this fiscal year, but that the WinterNational Parade wasn’t even included in the $400,000 Special Events budget.

Also take notice that $486,521 was spent on a Super Bowl Special Event held at the city’s leased property known as Red Garden, that was never budgeted for this fiscal year, yet magically appeared in the city’s Financial Transparency portal.

Which could explain why our January 8, 2020 public records request for “all costs associated with the development and opening of the property referred to as Red Garden,” and a January 22, 2020 public records request for “copies of any and all contracts and/or payments for construction, design, maintenance, consulting and/or operating from the beginning of this fiscal year October 1, 2019 to the present date” have both been completely ignored by the City Manager’s Office.

According to the city’s Financial Transparency portal, here’s how that $486,521 was spent:

None of which was included in the 10-minute special presentation made at the January 28, 2020 Council Meeting by then-Deputy-now-Interim City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey about the Super Bowl event, or the Council discussion that followed.

We’re especially curious about the $300,300 spent on Robert Rivera Consulting LLC and TDG Sports & Entertainment LLC, when only an additional $200,000 was to be spent from the General Fund for this event, according to Deputy Duke.

It’s not over yet, though.

We do know that the city has committed at least another $100,000 for the four tents used for the Super Bowl party, only one of which the city will actually own.

Nor does the $486,521 include the cost of police overtime, which we estimated to be roughly another $100,000.

We also know that additional invoices have been or will be received from vendors that have not been paid as yet.

We will be posting another blog about this event if and when we receive the responses to our public records requests.

In the meantime, ponder this.

With one-third of the fiscal year completed, the City of North Miami is already showing a deficit of $5,042,281.76.

That’s not counting last year’s deficit of $6,061,799.

Or the deficit of $2,846,268 in Fiscal Year 2017-18.

Or the deficit of $3,099,178 the year before that.

Because North Miami.

But, no worries, North Miami residents.

Deputy Duke’s got this covered.

‘Cuz his plug hit a lick.

Or something.

Stephanie