First in a series on the Miami-Dade 2026-27 budget
Budget season is back. Hide your wallets. The annual ritual has begun.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has unveiled her proposed $14.3 billion budget for fiscal year 2026-27 (Ladra suspects it is higher), and if last year’s budget process felt like a root canal without anesthesia, buckle up. This one promises to be just as uncomfortable — only this time the county has fewer rabbits left to pull out of the fiscal hat.
The mayor’s message to residents is reassuring enough: no tax-rate increase, no sweeping cuts to nonprofits like those floated (and later abandoned) last year, and a continued commitment to public safety, parks, transportation and fiscal responsibility.
Translation: Everything is fine… except for the parts that aren’t.
Read related: Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava will have two budget ‘town halls’
The biggest flashing warning light is transportation.
Miami-Dade’s transit system is facing yet another budget cliff, and the proposed solution isn’t exactly a long-term fix. Instead of raising fares or increasing the gas tax — ideas that went over like a lead balloon last year — the administration proposes raiding an $89 million reserve that had been accumulating for future rail expansion.
Because everybody knows that’s never gonna happen.
The reserve, known by the wonderfully bureaucratic name Transportation Infrastructure Improvement District, was created to help fund future SMART Plan rail expansion. Remember the SMART Plan? Those ambitious rail extensions that were supposed to transform transportation across Miami-Dade?
They’re still on the map.
The money? Not so much.
After this budget, the reserve is expected to be essentially drained just to keep today’s buses and trains operating, which doesn’t sound really smart.
The proposal also recommends eliminating 12 bus routes — a dozen routes, poof, gone — and shortening service hours on dozens of others by ending service before 6 a.m. and after 10 p.m.
Read related: Miami-Dade passes final $12.9 million budget — sans transit fare increases
County officials note those routes account for only about 2% of weekday ridership. But tell that to the people who ride them. Working a late shift 
could suddenly mean walking home.
Commissioner Marleine Bastien already warned that seniors in her district rely on those buses to buy groceries, get to doctor’s appointments and simply live their lives.
To the countywide spreadsheet, Route 272 may be a line item. To the person waiting at the bus stop at 5:30 in the morning, it’s the way to work. Or to the doctor’s office. Or to the food distribution site.
The administration deserves credit for trying to reduce spending before asking taxpayers for more money.
Departments are expected to squeeze another $79 million in spending reductions after already reporting $42 million in efficiency measures. More than 400 vacant positions would be eliminated under La Alcaldesa’s plan. Whether that’s enough for Commissioner Rene Garcia is yet to be seen.
It’s also worth noting that eliminating vacant positions is politically easier than eliminating occupied ones. Nobody has to clean out a desk.
The “good news” here is that the property tax rate remains flat. That’s likely to be welcome news for homeowners already dealing with rising insurance premiums, utility bills, gas, groceries and just about everything else. Property taxes will rise a little, because property values rose. But 
there was likely no way the county could offer the “roll-back” rate, which would allow the actual taxes (not the tax rate) to stay flat.
The mayor also isn’t proposing the transit fare hike or gas-tax increase that dominated last year’s budget debate.
So yes, there is some restraint here. But Ladra can’t help but feel they are robbing the basics from the poor departments, the ones that affect people’s lives the most, to pay the bill for some luxury items. We have to do a deep dive in the next few weeks to see what’s not being cut, which could be just as important or more.
And the elephant wandering through every budget meeting is November’s proposed statewide property-tax amendment. If voters approve it, local governments across Florida could lose substantial revenue.
Miami-Dade is trying to prepare for that possibility now by trimming spending and avoiding new recurring obligations. That’s prudent budgeting.
But it also means this year’s difficult conversations could look easy compared with next year’s.
Now comes the part where commissioners sharpen their pencils. Between now and September, expect:
- Commissioners fighting to save bus routes.
- Lobbyists defending programs headed for the chopping block.
- Advocacy groups packing commission chambers.
- Residents wondering why government always seems to discover a budget crisis in July.
Some of the mayor’s proposals will survive. Some almost certainly won’t. That’s how the Miami-Dade budget process works.
Every July, everyone agrees the numbers don’t add up. Every September, they somehow do.
Until the following July rolls around again.
Only in Miami could a $14.3 billion budget still leave everyone asking the same question: “Wait… we’re broke?”
This kind of independent, government watchdog reporting is crucial to transparency and democracy. And more so every day. Help shine a light on the darker corners of our community with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. Ladra thanks you for your support.
Miami-Dade mayor unveils painful budget season 2, transportation cuts added by Ladra on
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The mayor’s budget is a complete slap in the face to Miami-Dade residents who lose hours of their life sitting in traffic. How many miles of new Metrorail could’ve been paid for by the money she gave her “nonprofit” buddies last year? Public transportation is an appropriate, core government function—social-justice programs aren’t. The transit system should be the one department that’s completely off-limits to cuts—and while we’re at it, let’s raise the fare and fund the SMART plan before traffic strangles the county like a noose.
Cava has hired too many County employees. Worse, their pay and benefit packages are so high many think they won the lottery.
” The Sheriff only cares about posting on social media, while the office is falling apart. Zero leadership, 1000% incompetence.”
Anyone can say anything online without proof so I will do just that but have no choice and say I know a few guys in her department , they are ethical outstanding men and they do not have anything good to say about her , in fact one got his ass handed to him for giving a ticket when he was completely in the right but she did not want that person touched.
The worst thing that could have happened to Miami is the Miami-Dade Police Department becoming the Sheriff’s Office, which carries no independent oversight once they fully transition.
Between Rabbi Mark Rosenberg (aka Shadow Sheriff, which you already reported on, Ladra), and the Sheriff handpicking a friend for ‘legal representation’ on services that could be performed by the army of lawyers they have on salary (the lucky awardee is another subject of one of your articles, Ladra, Israel ‘Izzy’ Reyes, who swore in the Sheriff and is a former employee of MDSO), that place is out of control.
The Sheriff only cares about posting on social media, while the office is falling apart. Zero leadership, 1000% incompetence.
I am not surprised people are quitting. The Sheriff will terminate anyone who the Shadow Sheriff doesn’t like. We still have to find out what happened to those highly ranked officers who are no longer at MDSO. I hope they sue, so they can sit all the ‘management team’ for depositions, so we can finally know what’s going on and where our taxes are going. I bet it is bad.
” with many deputies leaving for Broward County’s”
I am not in law Enforcement and sadly admit I would last one day but based on Police / Sheriffs ” Deputies ” I know and especially my uncles friend whose son was Hialeah Police and transferred out of Miami years ago , corruption here is so engulfing to the point that if they give a ticket to a politician / Judge family member their career is OVER .
It is only the ” little people ” which is safe here to ticket and plenty of Police had enough thus they transfer or try to,
I know 3 Vets who were hired and all 3 got out , in fact Miami VA Police are fighting ( imagine Union ) as they do not want to become incorporated into Miami police .
Eliminate 400 vacant positions from the County human resources role? Such vacant positions exist only on paper; factor them as projected costs. More concerning is the rumor from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office about over 500 real vacancies in sworn ranks alone [these are law enforcement, not civilians], with many deputies leaving for Broward County’s Sheriff’s Office. Why? If true, this is a danger to effective policing and officers’ safety. Can Miami-Dade County residents afford to have a 16.7% deficit in sworn personnel not patrolling their neighborhoods?
I do not regret not voting for a Cuban as find them an assembly line of self serving parasites but Cava truly is a clueless limo lib because bus service in Miami as is leaves a lot to be desired and if someone can not drive perhaps elderly, etc this outside of Uber, etc which has become more expensive is their only means of transportation.
I call her a limo lib as under her government has grown and NOT improved in the slightest so she has created a monster of government with the standard Miami regardless of political party zero accountability.
I’m in Doral and took trolley once as my ride was in the shop and was not bad but now 2 years later like EVERY service in Miami which starts off well it is not a shadow of what it was once because actual accountability of employees is a foreign concept to Miami Mayors , Officials .