Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Mayor Gimenez Cops Out on his Responsibilities...By Geniusofdespair

  
Shifty eyes, leaning head and pursed lips: Yep it is the Mayor. Read Carlos Gimenez's tell: Cocked head.


1st Cop Out - Item 2B4 on today's agenda:

It is an item on a study on pay equality at the county and is accompanied by a memo from the mayor saying he doesn't have the expertise to do the study.

Apparently it was a bcc request by resolution last year and the mayor is saying he needs extra dollars to do the study by an external entity. Pathetic. All it would take is an excel spreadsheet, some time, and a good pair of eyes. It took him long enough for this cop out.

2nd Gimenez Cop out (another oldie rearing its ugly head):

The Board of County Commissioners will address the Special Taxing District item during today's BCC hearing.

As previously exposed by Channel 23, in 2011 the Miam-Dade Public Works and Waste Department failed to raise the rates on all Special Taxing Districts in an effort to keep taxes low and help reelect Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

For the span of four years, under orders from the mayor's office, the listed department has failed to raise the rates throughout the county and as a result the Miami Dade Finance Department has uncovered a huge deficit in Special Taxing District funds.

The County's Legal Department has ordered rates for all districts to be raised in order to cover the deficit; however, Mayor Gimenez wants to raise the rates on a pro rated basis in order to avoid raising the rates of thousands of county residents, especially in a year prior to his reelection bid.

In order to diffuse this issue the listed department forced Special Taxing District Chief Don Tok to resign and Deputy Mayor Alina Hudak has been assigned to oversee the issue.
The department has held back the required notice alerting all Special Taxing Districts of the impending raise in taxes due to the wave of bad publicity such action will create. The department is hoping to convince the commission to delay hearing the item or procure funds from other sources to cover the deficit. (rob Peter to pay Paul approach)

This is a clear attempt by the Gimenez administration to cover up a past misdeed by playing a budgetary shell game. The intended objective is to protect the mayor by keeping taxes and rates low and prevent Raquel Regalado from  using the information against the mayor in her mayoral campaign.

Rates will go up throughout the county as a result of this deficit.

You can't cop out of these 2 Mayor Gimenez: You look bad.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

It seems to me Human Resources should have ths data in real-time. You simply need to have a programmer write the program and the computer will give you everything you want. As a matter of fact this info should already be packaged as it is required for many federal grants, monitoring reports, program evaluation reports, and quarterly reports. Also doesn't the county have a number of offices whose main mission it is to insure equity in hiring? What are these people doing?

Anonymous said...

Taxes are too high and taxpayers are pissed. Everyone has read about that crook Michelle Spence-Jones retiring on a $127,000 per year pension courtesy of the taxpayers. Everyone has read about public sector employees double and triple dipping. Even Audrey Edmonson acts like she is on the payroll of the Miami Heat. Say it ain't so.

Anonymous said...


Cop Out #!: The real study that needs to be done is to examine just who was actually terminated or demoted during the budget cuts. Analysis would not make the women or the black community happy at all. I can assure you not one upper level manager was touched.

Cop Out #2: If the special taxing districts aren't collecting the money to pay for the services how are the costs being paid? By the taxpayers who don't even live in these districts. If the budget has to be balanced there can't be a huge deficit when the external auditors come by.

DISGUSTING -- Gimenez has got to GO

Anonymous said...

When the rates go up, Mr. Mayor will blame the unions.

Anonymous said...

Mayor Carlos Gimenez's many shell games:

Making Miami Beach's LIncoln Road a "slum area" by renewing a CRA costing tax payers $80 million over the course of the
agreement.

Taking bed tax reserves from the Marlin's stadium bond repayments, washing the funds through the zoo, and using the zoo's
budget to pay for county police.

All residents will be horrified by what it will cost to live in Miami-Dade in the 2020's. And the Mayor's PAC is called
Resident's First - might as well be Resident's First F_ked.

ok said...

everyone knows the county's hr department is completely incompetent. if they don't have the expertise to do a simple salary study, then it's time to outsource the department.

Anonymous said...

Carlos Gimenez panders to unions, especially to his own fire union. Gimenez should have fired 3,000+ when he was elected. He has done a weak job reducing expenses. Taxpayer funded trips to Europe?

Anonymous said...

You know, we simply must do something about IT with the county. In an age where everyday people have computers in iPhones that actually have verbal conversations with you, answer direct questions with a voice, retrieve information and report back to you verbally, and can think and have opinions and arguments with you on major questions of the day, we have got bring the county up to the level of regular people. In fact, I am careful with my iPhone now.

Anonymous said...

To those who continually blog here asking Gimenez to fire additional county employees to reduce expenses, please know that the county is currently running on bare bones and can barely afford another layoff.
The comingling of 52 departments into 26 by Gimenez in 2011 created chaos and allowed Gimenez to issue county contracts to his lobbyist contributors without opposition or proper supervision. And do you know why? Exactly, every professional supervisor no longer wants to work for the tyrant and has transferred or sought private sector jobs elsewhere.
If you want to find out where the public monies are going check out the privatization of all county departments and the excessive payoffs to "friendly" contractors instead of blaming the employees.
It's easy to come here and ask for county employees to be laid off but no sooner than your trash does not get picked up on time, the pothole in front of your house does not get fixed or the police takes more than three minutes to get to your house you are calling the county to complain about the "lack of services".
As far as the unions are concerned, they exist to protect employees not just in the public but also private sector from megalomaniacs like Gimenez who seek to benefit himself and family at the expense of those around him. Want to save some money? Ask Gimenez to contribute with one of his two retirements or his lofty $150K a year salary plus benefits. Meanwhile, enjoy Gimenez and his lobbyist pals on Twitter as they parade through the Champs-Elysees on your public dollar. Au revoir d'mbeciles!

Anonymous said...

To the anon above, well stated.

Anonymous said...

Getting rid of Gimenez is simple. Just register to vote and vote him out of office. We have seen a lot of that in these last elections.

Anonymous said...

is the water and sewer rates the reasoning behind this article from the MIami Today?
Miami-Dade tweaks budget system

www.miamitodaynews.com
ADVERTISEMENT
Written by Susan Danseyar on June 2, 2015

The Miami-Dade Commission altered its budget process Tuesday so that changes to the mayor’s proposed budget must come a few days before the first and second budget hearings and the committee with jurisdiction over budgetary matters will review new fees, rates or changes to existing ones in the mayor’s proposed budget and send recommendations before the first full commission discussion.

Commissioners unanimously amended the county code to allow at the first and second budget hearing a separate motion and vote on changes to the mayor’s proposed budget regarding property tax rates for the countywide general fund, unincorporated municipal service area, Miami-Dade library system for operating purposes, countywide bonded debt service and Miami-Dade fire and rescue services district bonded debt service.

The distribution of those changes is also required no later than 48 hours prior to the first and second budget hearing.

The commission also approved an ordinance that asks the mayor or his designee to present a report detailing all new fees, rates and charges or adjustments to existing ones at the committee meeting and include the reason for the proposed changes, as well as information regarding additional anticipated increases over the ensuing five fiscal years and assumptions used to forecast such anticipated increases.

In addition, the commission auditor, in consultation with the committee chair having jurisdiction over budgetary matters and the mayor’s designee from the office of management and budget, will prepare a separate budget for the commission and all departments and divisions that report directly to the it, including the county attorney’s office, the Office of the Inspector General, the Commission on Ethics and Public Trust and the Office of Commission Auditor and Legislative Analysis Division under the county commissioners’ fund

Anonymous said...

Carlos Gimenez and his boondoggle trips. We need a replacement for Gimenez. By the way, Tomas Regalado is guilty of taking boondoggle trips too. Wasting the taxpayers money.

Maria said...

There were 4,709 Miami-Dade County employees who made more than $100k last year. And yet they continue to whine about their pay and staffing levels. We have the laziest and most overpaid local government workers in the nation. Their greed knows no bounds.

Anonymous said...

Almost 5,000 public sector employees of the County made over $100,000? Outrageous.

Geniusofdespair said...

I can guess who wrote the last two comments and it ain't anyone from the public.