We give up our police department to PB County. Why? To be safer they said. It is true; there are a lot more police on the streets. But what is it costing us? Everytime the Sheriff has to bring in a special unit or one more man, it costs us over and above the Contract. Can we really afford it? What have these “extras” cost us to date? We still have 47 police who remain in the Lake Worth Pension Plan. We still pay for a Pension Plan! So, whether we are better off or not remains to be seen. No one listened to Mark Bates when he said that we could not afford this deal.
We stopped our own Reverse Osmosis Plant after spending $14 million dollars and voted to spend $21 million with PB County for their water. Why? All I can blame it on is the economy, craziness, city management as well as elected officials.
Captain Drew Hacker, telephone 601-8029, with the Lake Worth Fire Department was the guest speaker for ROLOH at their March 10th Meeting at 7:00pm. He was joined by a County Fire Department Representative to discuss the possible merger of County and City departments. Read their presentation-- CLICK HERE
Essentially, the merger is up in the air due to the $8 million pension deficit. Palm Beach County wants to be reimbursed for this huge expense over a seven year period which roughly amounts to $1.1+ mil a year with the extra funds coming out of the CRA Budget. The City Commission thinks the CRA’s budget should be untouched. The CRA thinks that its budget is sacrosanct. Why doesn’t the City Commission start thinking about the city tax payer instead of a Board that brings absolutely nothing to the bottom line. All it does is spend and as long as there is money in it, the give-aways are endless. The majority on that Board don’t believe they have to account or even re-think their policies.
Fire Chief Blockson says that the County is the way to go. I have a lot of respect for the Chief and trust his judgment, however, he said the same thing about the police. Personally, I think merging the police with the County will be the straw that broke the camel’s back, sort of like Pahokee, a city that now pays more for the Sheriff than it brings in ad valorem. Pahokee will probably be forced to extinguish its Charter. Mark Bates says that the Fire deal is a good one for Lake Worth. Will we listen to our Chief and our Finance Director? If we don’t listen to the experts, why do we employ them?
The questions remaining are whether the City Commission will adjust the millage accordingly once it merges the Fire with the County or will it cave in to the CRA and retain its fire department here? Will the taxpayer of Lake Worth have to be the only one biting the bullet? The other question remaining is, once we have outsourced everything, is there any reason to remain a City?
