The Comfortable Fit

Comment Up
I received an e-mail from Cesar, part of my extended family. The last line of his mail said, "When you start off on the wrong foot, you end up on the wrong foot." This message is all so true. This got me to thinking just how we go about solving our problems here in Lake Worth...how we got to where we are and when will the gravy train come to a screeching halt. When will the taxpayers say, "enough is enough."

We all know by now that Lake Worth taxes are going up…we are just unsure of the final millage rate from the proposed 5.9999 mils. We are rather sure that the City will come back with a final proposal of 4.9999 mils, (the REAL plan) saying that they have saved us an entire mil…city government working for YOU!

The City continues to nickel and dime the citizens to death. They’ve got you coming and going with new fees for just about everything. The City has done an outstanding job in raising fees for residents. The latest is public information requests. Is there anything else left? Next it will be a charge just to enter a city park. Soon we won’t be able to even see the ocean when we drive to the beach with the new Singer Plan. The only thing that has not gone up or has been taken away is the price of parking at the beach used primarily by people outside the city limits. Our decal parking permit doubled. Let’s stick it to the residents of Lake Worth...take away our ocean view and raise taxes to boot!

Palm Beach County Commissioners are looking to raise property taxes by almost 15% and it is no surprise that almost every County across the State is facing the same problems that we are here—budget shortfalls due to reduced property values. Here in Lake Worth it is nearly a 24% drop!

Lake Worth is left with two choices: cut spending in every way possible or raise taxes. Taxes here have already gone up across the board...utility, water, waste. And now we will experience a bigger tax in Fire Rescue than what was suggested before the vote. Overall, I would not be surprised to find out, when all is said and done, that we turn out to be one of the highest taxed cities in Palm Beach County, if not the highest.

The Sheriff’s Department is costing this city a small fortune. We have no idea if they are doing the job. Sure, their response time is good but what are the real stats? No one knows. Is crime up? Is it down? Are we making arrests? Are we kicking the bums out of Dodge? What are the real costs to the citizens of Lake Worth? What has overtime cost us? How is it affecting our Pension retirement Plan that 47 of them elected to keep. Is this deal bankrupting our City or is it just making everything untenable? Now we find out that the Sheriff is unwilling to even discuss lowering the cost--maybe next year they say. They call the shots. They get one million more a year, all of our assets, but will not talk about costs. Well, we did it to ourselves. We got what we deserved for "safety," ...the same men just different shifts. And the pension costs we still have to pay keep on going up, up and away.

A few years ago when real estate value was going up, we had plenty of money. What did we do with it? Did we expand our budgets unnecessarily? Did we hire more personnel? Did we actually spend more money to clean up this city? Where did the money go? Did we save any? We voted to outsource just about everything we had during the times when we were collecting the most money.

We can’t ever seem to get an Audit in a timely fashion. We never get a Budget until the last 98 seconds. How do we evaluate anything without knowing what we have in order to determine where we are going? Even the CRA formulated a budget and they can’t tell us what is left in any grant program. How do we formulate a millage rate without knowing the basics?

Only two things can happen here: Lake Worth's economic growth will surge bringing in more taxes or the City will have to continue to raise taxes and fees. Which one do you think it will be? If it all continues in that trend, there will be more people moving out, more foreclosures, more people walking away. Our taxes are too high.

Our new City Manager is attempting to figure it all out—make changes and eliminate waste. The Budget is always so illusive. There is no way of determining anything much when it comes to budgets--where money is--where it went--where it disappeared to. It takes 11 months to get out an Audit! As long as the City knows, however, that it can keep on reaching into the pockets of Lake Worth taxpayers, the City will continue to go forward not knowing the left foot from the right -- really not caring as it has always been a comfortable fit.