Wednesday, December 04, 2013

The Thursday Union Vote at County Hall. Guest Blog by Norma Rae



The Thursday, December 5th Impasse Hearing will determine whether Mayor Gimenez can continue taking money from the employees to build up a Surplus in the Healthcare Accounts. Unfortunately for the Strong Mayor, the excessive healthcare “surplus” is not considered a general “reserve” of county funds, according to the Wall Street rating agencies.

The Gimenez Administration earned a negative outlook from Moody’s because he has so little money in actual reserves. The contingency reserve has 2.3% of revenues set aside. In the past, the County had a goal of maintaining a 60-day reserve in the contingency accounts, a 16.7% reserve. Gimenez has underfunded the contingency reserves so bad that the County has fewer actual dollars in reserves than the City of Miami. Moody’s reports the County has only $42.3 Million in Contingency Reserves, and the City of Miami has reported reserves of $73 Million this month. Standard & Poor's upgraded the City of Miami from Negative to Positive last week.

Thanks to the Unions, the Clerk of the Board audited the county’s healthcare accounts and discovered the excessive surplus that has been built up with the payroll deductions. While Gimenez has been distracting everyone with his war on the county employees, he has let the county’s financial condition become structurally unbalanced. The Unions have solutions to ensure the Self-Funded Health Insurance Accounts remain actuarially sound for the foreseeable future. But, shoring up the fiscal integrity of the entire government is going to take some real leadership by the County Commission.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Leadership? By the county commission? Those are mutually exclusive terms.

Anonymous said...

Gimenez had no problem raising the salary by 70% to $300,000 for Juan Kuryla, Port Deputy Director. This while the current Port Director remains in his job and while all other employees get cuts. Kuryla's background includes reassignment from his Public Works post to a remote field location because of improprieties, personal bankruptcy, coworker love affair leading to divorce, shady dealings with potential port vendors and clients resulting in Inspector General investigation, scheming to get PBSJ a port contract at the same time PB was being indicted for fraud, an embarrassing episode in Dubai on County business, inability to show up for work before 10am, wining and dining family and friends on his county credit card during foreign travel junkets, aggressive behavior toward law enforcement at traffic stops and other unstable episodes. He is favored by this administration and commission because of his ability to cater to their needs, including numerous junkets to foreign locations using a $500,000port budget item. The 2014 Port budget also includes a $5million item for payment in a legal judgment against the County for a judges ruling that the Port of Miami has a way of doling certain business permits illegally protecting incumbents -- ``creating a handful of entrenched privileged companies". The judge said evidence showed other ``established, qualified, competent and trustworthy,'' companies were denied permits even as some incumbents who didn't use their permits received automatic renewals. Kuryla works the backchannels and selection process, where privileged insiders are awarded business while those who are not tied into the system of lobbyists, commissioner aides and certain County staff are denied. Kuryla should be fired, not promoted. Divide his salary among honest employees. Stop the travel junkets for friends and family, save millions.

Anonymous said...

Thursday also Medical Marijuana Petition hearing by FL Supreme Court. Watch it live on the FLORIDA CHANNEL, Dec 5, 9am. Go to www.unitedforcare.org and sign the petition.

Anonymous said...

When the City of Miami has a better credit rating than the county we are wading in deep sh*t. Maybe the County needs a Financial Oversight Board to right the ship, since the elected group we have are about to run us aground.

O said...

Thanks for your concern about maintaining sufficient reserves. At least in this post you are not whining about a pay raise. The 5% employee deduction can go to the general reserve fund instead of a special healthcare account without any problem or legal consequence.

Anonymous said...

I lay most of this at the feet of the commissioners. Particularly those who are worrying about re-election (Pets Trust) and selling out from their "conservative" ideals (Lynda Bell). While Gimenez is on my "naughty list" and will be getting a lump of coal, I do think he pointed out the problem with the reserves. He does have to practice what he preaches though, and he is certainly taking care of the extended family. No respect.

Anonymous said...

I am getting depressed thinking about how disappointing Gimenez has been as Mayor. We voted for him because he seemed to understand how to manage things. He is only managing to get lost in the muck. He is obviously in over his head.

Anonymous said...

Gimenez promised to reduce the size of County government and reduce the employee head count. He merged departments and kept almost all the overpaid managers. Gimenez needs to reduce the number of full time employees by 3,000 to be taken seriously. At this point Gimenez looks like a typical politician wanker.
Commissioners should vote No on any increase to their pay and benefit plans.

Anonymous said...

Shall we blame it on the Port of Miami? Spending hundreds of millions to expand the Port and now it turns out they have SURPLUS land they can give to a soccer stadium. What kind of business plan is that? Where will all the new taxes from the luxury high-rise developments (70 plus) go - some of these units start at $5 million. I think the County will be coming into a windfall in taxes if the Miami Herald hype is to be believed. Then maybe they will have money for parks an public libraries. Or not. Probably will go to more money-losing ventures that lobbyists are proposing.

Anonymous said...

Can we all please get it!!!! No one is talking about a salary increase, Gimenez is just fixated on not letting employees have their full paycheck, the same paycheck they had in 2009, where is the increase? And this conversation about shrinking the size of government- please governments are supposed to adequately address the needs of a community, this is done by professional staff making the right recommendation and responsible elected officials approving it.

Anonymous said...

Governments have become bloated and top heavy because unions have gotten too powerful and weak politicians are too scared to oppose them. Look at every city in the US facing severe financial disasters and in every case unions are too powerful and considered a cause of the problems.

Anonymous said...

"Governments have become bloated and top heavy because unions have gotten too powerful". In the City of Miami, this is certainly true of the Police and Fire Unions - there are a large number of fire department personnel making in excess of $150,000 and more, annually. But don't lump in the AFSCME union for general workers: salaries were reduced by 5% to 10% three years ago, with no restoration, no "cost-of-living-adjustment" since, and a union leadership that is worthless and can't beat its way out of a wet paper bag! Hell, there are reliable City of Miami employees making about $8.13 an hour. How the hell can anyone raise a family on $325. per week? Mismanagement in Regaladoland ensures that cronies, incompetents, the uneducated and inexperience, and unskilled people are appointed to leadership positions, so there is no LEADERSHIP! The tax paying citizens of the City of Miami continued to get screwed by an incompetent and unprofessional administration!

Anonymous said...

The City of Miami has 4,200 employees and 75% are vastly overpaid. 100 fire union members make over $200,000 per year. Several dozen have desk jobs. The Fire Chief makes $350,000 per year. So sad Xavier Suarez caved in and voted to give the County union members a raise. How are the private sector workers going to come up with the money?

Anonymous said...

The Port of Miami is paying two men Director pay and benefit packages yet only one has the job as Director. Why?