Since budget is top of people's minds... I went back to watch the Aug 23 meeting which I really didn't get to watch live, and wanted to compare with the prior meeting where Garcia had made his comments about police spending, etc that wasn't even part of their budget.
Back in the July meeting, the board had to approve a millage rate because Florida's transparency laws require them to send out TRIM notices 30 days after the county property assessor publishes the year's property values. The value set for those notices is supposed to be the max the taxer will set. Staff reported using a higher rate would require 'extraordinary notice'.
I think Garcia or his goons read the thread because I mentioned about their voting with such a brief amount of detail, and in the Aug meeting he went out of his way to say they had already seen all this material and spent a lot of time with it
So let's start with all the misleading stuff they spew
July Meeting
- Garcia goes on about saving money in the budget and highlights spending on security specifically for Disney properties. 8M in spending that turns out, isn't even IN HIS BUDGET. He's referring to spending by the Cities IN THEIR OWN BUDGETS. So again, waving numbers around that aren't even in the context of the District's spending.
Aug Meeting
- The District's 'CEO' lead the budget presentation by claiming they were 'reducing collections 13.8Million' and eliminating 2.8Million in 'inappropriate spending'... claiming they were saving 16.6 million from the budget... and claimed it could have been 21.1Million if it weren't for having to pay for the lawyers.
This claim is total #$% - The only real reduction in that conversation is their elimination of 2.8Million. The 'reduction in collections' is the net change of their tax rate.. not an actual reduction in SPENDING. It's like a mechanic telling you "Oh I saved you $500 because I didn't raise my rates.. but I could have". It's not a reduction compared to what you actually faced... it's a made up comparison of what 'could have been'.
In truth, the budget calls for 2.7% net increase in spending - They didn't reduce spending, they took from some pots and added to others. The lower millage rate is due to assessments growing combined with their internal cuts. Their actual tax collections will increase over 9 million compared to FY23... even with the reduced millage rate.
- The irony is they eliminated their publicity budget - but are having to increase their spending in Public Affairs, in part due to all the extra FOIA requests they are getting (a sign of too much negative attention).
- Many departments were facing single digit reductions vs prior years, including from reduction of staff. It's hard to track completely because they also were moving headcount between departments. (Notably several OUT of the Fire Dept). Notable in capital projects was the Planning & Engineering dept which managed to keep expenses down by using the option to do 'less paving rehab'
- They make the budget a political topic by trying to finger point at Disney... literally calling out in the presentation 'Disney Incurred Expenses'
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Where they highlight spending 1.9M this year on legal, and budgeting for 4.5M next year. Seems awful low to me to expect their actual expenses over the full year and over multiple suits to only climb that little.
And lastly... riddle me this... They point out that the Disney pass perks were costing the district 2.5 Million. They also claim to have over 400 employees. Their solution is to gross up everyone's pay $1425. So in their quest to be good fiscal stewards they are going to spend over $5.7million... to 'save' 2.5Million to eliminate an 'inequitable' benefit that no one was complaining about.
It's also worthy of note that Garcia when addressing the change in benefits... basically pointed to the Fire Fighters contract specifically and was basically saying "we'll let the lawyers fight it out.. you got good lawyers and you negotiated this point specifically... so we'll see how that plays out" -- leaving a door open for maybe some perks continuing there... but for all the other employees it was more a 'policy' decision.
Makes you wonder if the other trade unions had verbiage in their contracts about the district's benefits. But they sure make it sound like the clause was specifically added in this latest FireFighter's union negotiation.
One note re. the contracts: I found an older contract for the firefighters and it contained the same term re. the Disney benefits as the new contract. I assume RCID had included it in every labour contract because they couldn't guarantee that Disney (a third party) would continue to offer the program to district employees. To me, it still seems pretty shady to cancel them very shortly after you spent months negotiating the contract without mentioning any planned change.
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