Amid all of the financial turmoil in the City, two projects, the ArtsPark amphitheater and a new training center for the Hollywood firefighters, appear to be moving forward like nothing is wrong. They are being funded with GOB's, General Obligation Bonds. That's essentially money we don't have being spent hoping we do have it, and if we don't have it, then you'll have it. Think higher taxes!
The ArtsPark project almost seems like a drop in the bucket when you talk to many local officials. After all, the County still owes the City about one and a half million dollars, so the City seems compelled to spend five or six million dollars to complete the project. This is a project that can and should be put on indefinite hold. We simply can't afford it now.
The new Fire Safety Training Center is the other big ticket item that is no more than a luxury for our firefighters. You might say, hey, we want our firefighters well-trained to save our home and our life in an emergency. Well, they can be well trained, right in their own back yard. Davie, our next door neighbor, has a multimillion dollar facility that they're willing to share with the firefighters of Hollywood. It's a state-of-the-art facility that could train firefighters from all over the county. Alas, our firefighters only argument for their own state-of-the-art facility is that "they would have to drive out of the City of Hollywood to train". That's coming from the mouths of the 195 firefighters who already LIVE OUTSIDE OF THE CITY. This is another project that could and must be stopped for lack of money.
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Dear Mayor and Commissioners,
ReplyDeleteI watched last night's budget meeting with interest. It is my belief that the only resolution to our ongoing systemic budget imbalance is (1) to call in the unions and renegotiate the salary & benefit escalations, and (2) plan now to move all employees to the FL retirement system. This is your best option for avoiding layoffs.
Until you do these things, Hollywood will be faced year after year with the need to consolidate and cut more and more. As the city manager pointed out, budget reductions have been ongoing for years, even when the economy was booming. As Commissioner Furr noted, the capital improvement budget today is a small fraction of what it was a few years ago. If homeowners allowed their yards to look like the grass on Dixie Hwy, they would be cited. In addition to cutbacks on maintenance of our roads and public spaces, this year we are down to the layoffs. And next year, from every prediction I've seen, will be worse and more layoffs will be required.
Hollywood is now is like General Motors: stuck with legacy pension and health costs and salary escalation that overwhelm legitimate, essential, non-luxury city services.
If you want to avoid layoffs not just this year but in the years ahead as well, and I think we are all agreed on that, you have to bite the bullet and deal with these personal service costs. Commissioner O'Sheehan asked why the budget increases despite all the consolidations, union concessions, cutbacks & layoffs reflected in Option A. The budget goes up -- EVEN WITH ALL OF CAMERON'S INGENIOUS CUTS -- because the salaries and benefits continue to go up. It is not the CPI that causes these increases now, as Ms. Forrester seemed to suggest, it is the contracts that YOU have negotiated.
You can change this situation, but to date you have not demonstrated the political will to do so. Using what little fund balance exists because it is "raining" is not responsible governance. Previous city commissions ran our reserves down to the bottom in years when it was not "raining" and from your discussion last night, it began to appear that you were choosing the same path.
Bottom line: Either it is layoffs, or it is renegotiated salaries & benefits and a planned move to the Florida retirement system. The latter is more fiscally prudent, better for both taxpayers and employees and much better for the city.
No one said it would be easy serving on the city commission and it surely is not that now. Please FINALLY summon the political will to deal with the systemic budget imbalance instead of tinkering around the edges. This tinkering year after year is now to the point where you are going to hurt significant numbers of human beings -- both taxpayers and employees. Moreover, it is not responsible governance.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sara Case
851 Harrison Street