But it is so full of holes that it shouldn’t weigh as much as it does.
Only about $115.6 million is in the general fund, the rest of that is in capital projects funds ($4.8 million all for Milander Park, which is one improvement plan that has to be audited and/or investigated come Nov. 17), special revenue funds — grants like Children’s Trust and affordable housing, transit monies and fire rescue transportation — and enterprise funds, like solid waste and the cash cow Water and Sewer, with a $103.4 million budget that the city keeps dipping into to cover expenses, we suspect (more on that later). So let’s concentrate for now on the general fund, which is where mayoral stand-in Carlos Hernandez plans to extract close to $7 million from the fire department by firing 105 firefighters and paramedics.
Let’s pretend this is not political backlash and retribution for the endorsement of his challenger, former Mayor Raul Martinez, which came one day before the alcaldito announced his plans to cut the fire rescue personnel by 40 percent and distributed a an article of past hostilities between the fire union and the Dark Prince (a bitter pill to swallow for many firefighters who remember the former mayor’s hardline with them in his administration). Let’s pretend it is not blatant retaliation for the union’s consistent legal victories that have found the city time and time again to practice unfair labor laws and which have cost the taxpayers millions of dollars in fines, legal costs and overtime. Let’s pretend it is not a pathetic example of blackmail as the council and administration extort the firefighters by saying the terminations could be stopped if they just swallow whatever concessions the mayor demands, rather than sit at a table and, in good faith, find ways to compromise on items that can lead to savings for the taxpayers, as the firefighters have offered. (We really cannot believe this is even legal for them to do this). Let’s pretend it is not a campaign ploy in a desperate attempt to keep his $190,000 job and VIP pension — because the council members get pension, too, and preferential treatment (more on that later).
Let’s pretend, also, that any one of those council members actually read the budget and all its glorious chapters and line-by-line itemizations. I say pretend because it is plainly clear that the Seguro Que Yes crew either did not read the budget or did not understand it. And I can understand that. Ladra is not a financial genius by any means, and this budget is not an easy thing to get through (so I cannot imagine either council member Pablito “Huh” Hernandez or Katherine “I sleep here and there” Cue getting the fine details). But there are definitely some questions that council members should have asked if they had been paying any attention to where the budget director, Alex Vega, is hiding the money. Instead, they stare blankly as others ask the questions they should be asking. Like why the budget does not reflect the $10 million that the city has twice been ordered to pay the general employees for a grievance the general employee union won and that the city is still appealing, at more legal costs to taxpayers. It doesn’t reflect that almost certain debt. Like why there are more than 32 additional positions (read: ghost workers to pad the budget) budgeted in the water and sewer department? Like why the revenues reflected for monies owed to the city from the county for overpayment on water and sewer fees are zero when there should be revenues there. After Martinez asked about it at the budget hearing , department director Armando Vidal said that he did not know why that line item had a zero. Because it shouldn’t be. It was a classic moment that perfectly illustrated how bogus and ridiculously falsified this budget is.
Still, there are more questions that the council should have asked. Especially before they voted to pass a bogus budget that calls for the firing of 105 of 271 firefighter paramedics based on economic hardship that, if you look elsewhere in the budget, doesn’t seem to really exist.
Let’s start with some positions that we want to know more about before we cut one single first responder from our fire rescue personnel. The “budget in stages” calls for the first 14 to be unemployed as of Oct. 1. They already got their letters from human resources about Sept 30 being their last day. But I found 14 or so other jobs that maybe should be eliminated instead. Maybe these positions are crucial. Maybe they are the botellas that they seem to be. This was admittedly found in a very quick and shallow look at the budget by Ladra, a dog who really doesn’t know what she is looking for. And we don’t have names attached to the budget, which is a shame since we would really like to know who these people are and what they do. But we will ask.
There is also a “literacy program director” (I kid you not) with $54,000 a year salary and a “sponsorship coordinator” with a salary of $37,600. The number of “community development representatives” grew from one to four for a combined $91,100. That’s three new positions. There is also a “mayor’s liaison” with a $38,000 salary — a new reward, er, I mean position, probably, for either Jonathan Martinez or Arnie Alonso, who each spent much time campaigning for former mayor Julio Robaina‘s failed county mayoral bid and will likely waste much of their taxpayer-paid time doing the same thing for their new boss — where 25 percent of the salary comes out four different departments: the code enforcement, occupational license, building and planning and zoning departments. Neither one would tell me when I asked what their new reward jobs were. There’s another position, one not budgeted last year, that is paid from two different accounts: a “purchasing/property director” with an $80,000 salary — 25 percent of which comes out of the office of management and budget and 75 percent of which comes out of “affordable housing fund.” Another new position is the building official, a title to which the senior building plan processor was promoted, with a salary of $96,000. This person’s former salary in the last position, where he or she was performing these duties, is not listed in the budget because it is eliminated. So, basically, this person was promoted, it seems. Wonder if it was a big raise.
These are great positions to be able to have in a city government, but maybe not at the price of 40 percent of the first responders who safeguard the residents lives for an average of $70,000. I have asked for a finer salary breakdown in the department, as some supporters of this dangerous and absurd proposal to cut two out of every five allegedly overpaid firefighters have suggested, and I expect to get those public records faster than I get most documents that I requested (have waited more than a week to see personnel records for Martinez and Alonso, and I bet that won’t come as quickly). But the proposed budget does reflect that the fire chief, who has been awfully silent about this plan to cut 40 percent of his staff, makes $131,000 and the assistant chief make $114,000. Three battalion chiefs make $364,720 between them, so that’s about $121,500 each and four division chiefs making about $105,00 each. But none of these top management employees are going to get fired, I bet. Not that they should. These are enviable salaries, sure, but these people are in those positions because they have worked for decades and climbed up the civil ladder and they make policy and operational decisions that affect hundreds of workers and hundreds of thousands of residents. And if we are going to size them up, it would be smart to compare them to, say, the police chief’s salary and fire chief salaries across the county and/or state for cities of similar size and population.
And while they seem like very high salaries at first glance, it’s not that much when you realize that the mayor makes $190,000 a year to dole out political favors to his campaign contributors and use the office and bully pulpit to campaign for election — not re-election since he was never elected to this position. It’s not that much when you realize that executive salaries in the city clerk’s office are projected to rise by $41, 342. Yes, they have a new office coordinator at $35,300 but lost a records manager who makes $35,900 (transferred to the building department for whatever reason). And the department has a new administrative aide for $26,600 but they lost a clerk/typist and a print shop technician. So two new staffers, three other positions gone is a net loss of one position. There should be an overall decrease, no?
There are so many questions about this budget, in fact, that one has to wonder if Vega, the man who wrote it for the mayor and makes $118,000 a year to play a funny money shell game for their political friends and aspirations, is overpaid.
Hialeah’s padded, bogus budget added by Ladra on
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