Lake Worth, Florida

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Land area in square miles, 2010-- 5.87

A little Trivia:

Housing units, 2010-- 16,473
Total number of firms, 2007-- 5,395
Persons below poverty level, percent, 2008-2012-- 28.6%
Population, 2013 estimate-- 36,000

Homeowner's Rate, 2008-2012-- 51.5%
Number of registered voters, 15,293

According to the latest audit, in 2012 the city recognized $22.0 million in revenue and spent $28.4 million.  Sounds like the federal government but there is one difference here--we can't print money!

With property values down again, it implemented rate adjustments with decreases of $3.2 million in electric, $.5 million in water operations and a decrease of $1.1 million in regional sewer. We ended up spending more in this budget cycle than income received. The commission also voted on settlement of the Greater Bay flam flam man suit and the regional sewer suit with a total expense of $2.4 mil according to the audit.

I could go on and on about this but you see the trend.  We spend more than we receive (and the commission allowed this to happen in 2013/2014 after just going through a $6 mil deficit in 2012/2013) and then it voted to reduce our income potential in the electric utility by reducing the rates by 4.25%.  Why would they do this when we had just spent $6 million more than we had received? City departments want to increase their budgets in the 2014/2015 Budget year and even add more employees which means more expenses in salaries, insurance and retirement benefits. Not one commissioner said "boo" to their requests. AND WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY!

We can't spend our way out of poverty. We can't operate a city on a deficit. We can't spend our way out of debt or tie up the property owners with 34 years of bond debt when we can't even take care of the basics. We need to live within our means. We also need to trust our officials and that gets harder with each passing day and the city's slum, blight and crime is non-stop.