Reporter Michael Putney chastises our County Commission, the Mayor and the County Manager in the Miami Herald, PROPERTY TAXES: County too slow in sounding the alarm. However, Putney gives high marks to City Mayor, Manny Diaz, for staying on top of the issue.
Discussing County tax dollars Putney said:
“Tax revenues soared as well as real estate boomed, although it's hard to pinpoint where all that tax money went.”
I will tell you where it went Michael:
A lot of it went out the window. ("House of Lie's" for instance, the affordable housing scandal outlined in the Miami Herald).
I have found one place where we can trim the fat budget and make elections more fair to non-incumbents at the same time: Get rid of those commissioner slush funds. We have 14 (including the Mayor) getting $350,000 a year to dole out to Community Based Organizations. It is a good idea gone bad.
Almost 5 million of your tax dollars goes into this program. What this fund essentially does is: buy favoritism. Some commissioners carry over their funds until election time and distribute it wisely to garner votes and support in the district. For instance, if the Commissioner gives to all the PTA’s in his or her district...that can be very powerful as a vote getter. PTA members are likely voters. The commissioners are usually pictured in either local neighbors section of the Herald or local newsletters, handing a blow up of the check to the PTA president (free press to boot!).
The money in these funds goes to such things as marching bands at high schools, chambers of commerce (Camacol got $45,000 in 2006), various schools (the troubled JESCA got $25,000). Miami Springs Optimist Club got $15,000. Kinad, Inc. got $26,000 (touring African American traveling Museum). I checked on Kinad’s events on their website — to see where they are bringing their traveling museum. That page is not working – no event dates available. Hmmm.
I don’t want to say that these listed Community Based Organizations are not important or needy. Some are. Let the expenses come out of the budget if they are worthy. However, many of these expenses should be absorbed by city budgets, not County. Only the unincorporated area should be hitting up the County for money in my view. If parks need money, they should come first because they serve the entire community not just one segment.
Let's stop giving the sitting Commissioners an edge in their reelection campaigns with strategic use of these “charitable” funds.
Getting back to Michael Putney: He projects the county will lose between $400 million and $500 million. I just saved them $5 million. Anyone else have any ideas?
9 comments:
Hoe about builders and developers pay the real costs for infrastructure and services; water, sewer, utilities, school, fire, police, libraries, trash, etc.
just found some more money that should never have been spent...
"County adds $503 million to North Terminal budget"...
A suggestion:
I see that Crist has cut some spending statewide. How about a posting or a link to a statewide/district by district analysis of these cuts?
As usual you ignore the place where all the money ACTUALLY goes. The (completely unessesary) airport expansion. $1 billion over budget so far and climbing by the day. You could add all the other scandals and wastes of money going on in this county (probably ever) together and not come close to this one. To put it in perspective the county only collected about $1 billion in property taxes in total last year.
Get a grip dave....what is with this as usual???
As usual, you did not read my post today where i elaborated on yesterday's post and mentioned the 1 billion over budget at the airport. and second, as usual you are wrong. The county collected 2.3 billion from property taxes which is counted as part of their 7.1 billion dollar budget. I didn't ignore anything....I write about what interests me...
oh G.O.D. ..sigh...you are, as always right. Your efforts , as you choose them, are always appreciated..
I like the idea of putting forward places to cut. Nobody seems to do that. Everyone says "cut the fat" but we all know that $500,000,000 is not chump change even by county standards. Something's gotta go.
The slush funds are a start - they crept back into being about 4 years ago and highlight the breakdown of the commission into isolated districts that are further fragmenting our community.
Let's hear some more ideas - but some that actually address property taxes - the airport expansion is being funded through bonding airport revenue, not property taxes. Same for the PAC - that's bed tax money.
Property taxes pay for Police, Fire, Library, Team Metro, Animal Services, Historic Preservation, Consumer Services (partly), Corrections, Communications, Elections, Transit (the 1/2 penny doesn't pay for it all), Parks, the Inspector General, Public Works and on and on. Take a peek at "departments" on miamidade.gov and start figuring out where to carve away.
Thanks for your post and information. How about we cut the ethics commission staff -- it is impotent anyway -- $250 fines. come on!
I'm all for cutting the ethics department. It's a shadow rubber stamp for the outright thievery that goes on. The members of the ethics commission should resign en masse and acknowledge to the public that it is a useless arm of the county commission. Let the scandals grow to a size where the FBI has to do something, provided that the agency still has a mission beyond hunting terrorists in our midst. Here's another idea: merge the ethics commission into the TSA... what's a few more when there are already Thousands Standing Around?
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