Sheriff and Fire Rescue - Budgets

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Well one cost will be on our tax bill--fire. The other one we just pony up to a tune of $1.3 million a month--sheriff.

It was brought up by Commissioner Mulvehill on Tuesday night that after the first 3 years of our contract with the PB County Sheriff’s Office, there will be no cap on what they can raise our costs.We have absolutely no protection and are solely and 100% at their mercy.

Right now, this is what it will cost the City of Lake Worth in this coming year beginning October 1, 2009:

POLICE: $15,677,000.00 (2009-10)

This does not include any overtime or special services. In addition to the above, we will be paying for services for the Hispanic Fest, Christmas Parade, Street Painting Festival, Reggae Fest, Tropic Fest and the Tropical Triathlon.

Last year, the Sheriff’s office paid out over $23 million in overtime to County Departments, Fire Rescue, and the Sheriff, with half that figure going to the Sheriff’s Department. Each deputy, on average, made $2,933 in overtime. This amount goes directly onto the pension calculation. Pensions and benefits are killing us. We will be paying $1,150,000 in retirement benefits for the 47 deputies who elected to stay in our Plan.

The PB County Commission has asked the Sheriff to cut his budget.

Lake Worth approves of Sheriff rate hike


FIRE RESCUE: $2,375,000.00 (2009-10)

As you know, fire rescue will be on our ad valorem property tax bill that we will be receiving by end of October. Pay it in November, if you can, because you will save a bundle. We were paying the equivalent of 2.95 mils. We will now be paying 3.4581 mils or a 17% increase. In addition, the City will be paying annual supplements--$700,000 for the 1st two years; $900,000 for the third year. After the third year, the supplement will be $1.3 million.

The above figure is in addition to what we will pay on our tax bill. This figure includes retirement (yes, we had fire fighters who elected to stay with our Plan), professional and contract services and $40,000 in insurance.

The biggest loss will be our Fire Chief, Chief Paul Blockson, who will no longer be assigned to Lake Worth. But even bigger than that is the loss of our own police and fire rescue. Management was the problem with our police. Cpt. Silva is doing a great job. Too bad we couldn't have found a Cpt. Silva of our own to have run our police department before we so easily handed over our department giving up on Lake Worth.

Perhaps one of these days we will grow up and actually become a "real" City again...have transportation, our own police and fire, have control over our own valuable beachfront property with no strings from the County, decide not to give our valuable assets away to PB County such as our waste water or spend $21 million in infrastructure to be able to buy their water instead of building our own Reverse Osmosis. The first good move of recent years was to exit FMPA.

Until then, we will remain a city in name only.