Comment Up
The first budget meeting was held on July 12 and several department heads gave brief presentations. As the back-up was not distributed to the public for these presentations, it was a little difficult to follow. Our operating fund is higher this year and we will be working with $31,961,947. But several departments presented their "wish-lists" that are not included in the proposed 2017 budget. I was there for the following:
PBSO: The PBSO's budget will go up by almost 2% or $272,219 for a total outlay of $12,465,000. The city plans on asking for 5 additional sworn officers and this is not in the proposed budget. What I didn't know was all the crime at our beach. Cpt. Bear wants two dedicated men at our beach property. There has been an uptick in crime probably due to the drug epidemic. There are more code violations and the PBSO assists in some of these.
Public Services Department: Had requested 3 additional street maintenance workers at a cost of $57,179 each and this total cost of $172,000 is not included in the proposed 2016/2017 budget. Jamie Brown is also requesting two vehicles for potholes that will be right under $100,000--a roller for $38k and a paver for $62k. The budget for basic street maintenance is lower for 2016/2017 or down 7.36%.
Community Sustainability: William Waters, Director, spoke to the business licenses for rentals and commercial establishments. There are 1900 property owners not paying the required fees. 25% of the commercial properties lack any business license at all. Of the Residential properties, 39% lack a residential license. Mr. Waters needs additional resources to tackle the non-compliant properties. He would like to start a new division whose duties would be to improve the compliance of Business Licenses including the Use & Occupancy inspections. The cost for this is estimated at $866,000 for the first year. This is not included in the proposed budget.
Several departments have raised their budgets: City Commission, City Manager, City Clerk, Internal Auditor, Community Sustainability, Police, Grounds Maintenance, Library, Leisure Services Rentals.
No one mentioned nor did anyone ask why the total budget for 2017 is $10,077,205 less than last year.
6 comments:
Lynn, I am at the beach every week and I never see any crime. What sort of crime are they saying is going on there?
Well,now we know where our new 50,000,000 "ROADS" bond money will go !And why was the budget for 2017 lower???
It's double speak!
They want a bond for the roads.
Rejected comments about 'showing good
faith" w/a smaller one and show you will
do what you said & maintain them...but
lower the 'front' money in the budget, why?
Does the Internal auditor do anything? What is he working on now? The only time I see him is when he is nodding off in the last row of the city chamber room. Scott must know. He hired him.
So why does all this shock you as it is what is normal with our city administration. So are we so blind that we thing the CM did not know his direct reports wanted more $ before this session, come on people if that is true then our CM actually has 0 clue what's going on in his own city. Look at how many new people the Elect Dept has and how many people are promoted and new offices built, where did that $ come from. The CM has all fooled doesn't he?
Why do we pay more than Wellington (which has a higher population and much more land) to PBSO and get lower services, fewer officers?? Crime is out of control, I agree, and we do need more officers, but why do we have to pay more for it when Welly pays less than us and gets better services??
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