Susan Stanton's Proposed Budget a "visionary" for Lake Worth

It’s time to take back our City, as Susan Stanton says, and with her proposed Budget that she has been working on for the last seven months, we can. Decisions made in the past have crippled our forward movement. Union benefits are out of control. The entire economy because of sub-primes, brought our little city to its knees. The only thing left for survival is to stop the insanity and that means the Unions. Bad contracts that happened a decade ago have finally caught up to us.

The current City tax base “will not generate adequate property tax revenue to fund existing city services without making comprehensive and systemic reductions in both the cost and scope of City services and contractual commitments.” That means the Unions. The Unions, to this day, have been unwilling to come to the table. Right now, our total obligation to Union pensions this year is $7.4 million with an increase to $9.7 million by year 2016. The total unfunded exceeds $58 million that we will have to pay! The percentage of payroll for the Firefighter’s alone is 152.13% of payroll. Insanity? I think so.

As we all know, there are many States and Cities struggling to stay solvent. The main problem is the out of whack and overly generous contracts with Union workers. Here in Lake Worth, we have three Unions that we are committed to that are literally pulling us into an untenable state. The cost of pensions and healthcare coverage is bankrupting us. The only relief for some municipalities is Chapter 9 as that is the only way we could re-negotiate or cancel these destructive union contracts.

Our City Manager has suggested the following without raising millage or layoffs:

PBSO--Reduction of $1,221,206 (This has been agreed through elimination of officers) As you recall, when the PBSO took over the services for public safety, they had 91 men on the streets that first year. They upped this to 133 and now we are back down to 124.

PB County Fire/Rescue--Deferral or reduction of $350,000 supplemental payment

Employee--Reduction of $1,816,000 in the Defined Benefit Pension Plan and adopting a Defined Contribution Plan (This was also suggested by Bill Thrasher of the Financial Advisory Board)

Police Defined Pension Plan--Reduction of $370,000 beginning Oct 2011

Personnel benefits--Reduction of 1,355,000

Total savings: $4,740,000.

Please read the 38 page City Manager Budget Message starting on page 17 of the Budget, a most “visionary” perspective from our City Manager who is thinking progressively and has the ability to look beyond the “now” to formulate strategies that will ensure the health of our City and its future success. Other than red-light cameras and downtown parking lot meters, and not having read the actual Budget yet, I support this proposed budget, based on the City Manager's Message, 100%. We have been in this box for way too long.