Let's Eliminate the Free Lunch

As we have talked from time to time about ridiculous commission travel and entertainment expenses that have already exceeded budget for 2014, the Post has now exposed the director of the Port of Palm Beach for doing the very same thing. Read about it here.

The five port commissioners budget themselves $6,000 a year for annual travel but have a policy that if one doesn’t use his or her allotment, the others can use it, up to the total of $30,000. Here in Lake Worth, the budget used to be $30,000 a year and then it was cut in half.  In 2012, the commission agreed to limit spending to $1,700 per elected official per trip. The only dissenter to the vote was Amoroso. I guess he believes, along with the vice mayor, that you should be able to spend in any manner you choose as the city manager approves it all anyway.  The overall yearly budget for all 5 commissioners is $15,000, or $3,000 a piece. 

Isn't it high time that officials and employees in Lake Worth bite the bullet and cease all travel and seminars especially when we are the 2nd poorest city in Palm Beach County and they are asking taxpayers to swallow the bullet--approving $63 million in long-term debt and spend another $20 million when we already have debt on the books that has not been paid off?  The commission asks us to swallow their explanation that travel is beneficial for the city but never have they given a presentation on what's been accomplished--not once, never, nada.  Let's eliminate the free lunch so that the city can stop choking on the frivolous.