Miami-Dade: Carlos Gimenez saves us — from himself

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Everyone in Miami-Dade County can sigh a breath of relief! Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez has saved the day!

There will be no further cuts to services and personnel, no more “sacrifices” asked of our loyal county employees, no more library closings. In fact, 10 of the 20-some libraries closed two days a week will go back to a six-day schedule and we’re going to hire cops and the grass will be cut more and — oh my gosh! — buses will be cleaned.

Heck, there’s enough money to extend the benefits that were taken five years ago and then rightfully restored in 2014 to union employees — which Gimenez fought with a veto that was eventually overturned less than a year ago — to non-union employees, which include practically all of the mayor’s staff.

Like Gimenez said during the State of the County address in January, the bad times are over and we have turned a corner.

“Yes, better days are ahead and my proposed budget reflects that.”

No thanks to him, actually. Because, although Gimenez seems to don a super hero’s cape about turning the economic situation around, the reason he has so much room to restore services and library hours is because property value increases and new construction have resulted in nearly a 10% increase in taxpayer dollars going to the county bank. That translates to more than $120 million of new-found money.

But the real question is… Was this the idea idea all along?

In other words, did Gimenez cry “Wolf” last  year so he could save us from it’s jagged teeth this year? Did he create the chaos to become the savior? Could we have possibly turned the corner sooner? Or were we detoured from the best and less painful path by a mayor, desperately seeking re-election, who intentionally turned the lights off so he could take credit for pulling us out of the dark?

Gimenez unveiled his budget Tuesday and, in a stark comparison to last year, it’s all good news. Words like capital improvements and park enhancements and jobs and transit challenges and services were stressed. He mentioned how his initial 12% tax cut in 2011 and his holding the line since has saved taxpayers a total of $981 million and the average homeowner about $961.

Notice how he doesn’t say that he’s saved the average one of us less than $250 a year. Because then it doesn’t sound worth it, does it? Not if you’re paying additional garbage fees for that second can or increased permit or park fees.

Read related story: Miami-Dade budget: A moving target of fuzzy math

And if you listen closely — and Ladra urges everyone to watch the video recording of his budget reveal, even if you wince a little when he speaks Spanish — you will see that all this breathlessness is really about restoring the very same services Gimenez has cut in four years and not much else. Maybe that is why he repeats stuff over and over again. Because there really isn’t a lot to brag about.

• We get some of our libraries back. He doesn’t tell you it’s less than half of the total that had days cut last year. No mention of how these are the same libraries he said we don’t need any more.
• We’re getting more cops on the street. A whopping 100 by September 2016. What he doesn’t say is that we are more than 300 short and will be close to 600 short by this time next year, due to retirements, and that some of those 100 new cops on the street won’t be new hires but rather investigative officers and detectives taken off robbery and burglary cases so there is less follow up and less cases solved (more on that later).
• We also get 200 more corrections officers. But that was mandated by the Department of Justice, which found our department woefully understaffed and undertrained.
• We get another fire boat — yes, the same fireboat Gimenez so adamantly said last year was not needed and was just a union giveaway. Is he wasting funds now?
• He’s putting $5 million into park improvements and enhancements, including the funding of children’s programs at 11 parks. But Ladra has not heard back yet from the administration into how much new and increase park fees is going to generate in funds. Maybe it’s around $5 million?
• The budget includes $38 million — approved by the commission already — for Liberty Square Rising, the largest public housing development in the county’s history, money he said will be leveraged with private funding for a public private (huh?) housing complex that everybody sorta doubts will happen and that’s why he isn’t getting developers to jump at the chance (more on that later).
• Ten of our worst (read: busiest) thoroughfares will get $98 million in traffic devices and signalization and another $45 million will go to the final phase of improvements in the automated traffic light program. Someone needs to look into that spending. Seems high.
• Gimenez is asking for $500,000 for Employ Miami-Dade, his baby, a training program he funded through his office that he says has registered more than 1,000 people for jobs in and around Liberty City and found jobs or offers of jobs for at least 300 of them. He says that proves it works and that the commission should fund it (more on that later).
• For the first time since he was elected, the mayor is putting money away in reserves — $5 million going to emergency contingency funds that have dwindled down in the last four years, making the interest the county pays on debts higher.
• The mayor set aside $3.25 million for the Underline Park that we all want to see under the MetroRail from Dadeland to Brickell. But he admitted it is going to be a fight because Gov. Rick Scott vetoed state funds allocated to the development of the greenway. In other words, the $3.25 million might also be headed for the reserves at the end of the year. Or is it already part of the $5 million calculation?
• We have money allocated for cleaning buses and rail cars. But in the same breath he says that we are buying or bought new rail cars that will be online soon. So now we are cleaning the old ones? Doesn’t that seem like throwing money away? Or… wait. Is that part of the shell game?
• There’s $1 million earmarked for a summer jobs program for needy youth. Easy A.
• There’s $500,000 for services and meals on wheels for the elderly, the same meals on wheels that were threatened with cuts last year. Another freebie.
• There’s anotehr $500,000 to plant more trees and increase canopy. How sweet! Betcha Manuel Diaz Farms gets the bulk of that business.
• There’s funding for 10 additional early voting locations during the 2016 presidential elections. No brainer. (And is 10 the magic number here? Ten libraries, 10 new early voting locations, 10 roads for signalization improvements).
• There’s funding for two additional NEAT teams of low-paid workers who go around covering graffiti and filling potholes. Neat!
• There’s funding to restore grants for non-profits and community groups to what they were before the competitive process begins next year. Last minute gifts for niches that could influence votes in 2016.
• There’s funding for 400 new county vehicles. Hopefully not so that they sit around in a garage for months.
• And the grass is going to get cut more often. Really? No kidding?

Is it me or does the budget seem rather anticlimactic? Especially compared to this time last year.

It begs the question: How can things be so different from a year ago, when Gimenez was ready to present a minor tax increase that he later backed out of and threatened to fire dozens of police officers? How can a multi-year approach generate such a supposedly surprising boon of “game changers” from one year to the next?

Gimenez is, at best, an incompetent idiot who is surrounded by people who were not able to predict this sudden bounty a year after the gloom and doom scenario and, at worst, an evil Machiavellian genius who did know that the dark days were done and caused the doom and gloom so he could rescue us from it.

Forgive Ladra if she has little faith or confidence in this particular mayor and this particular administration when it comes to budget time. Monies are moved around like pearls in a shell game, something to which we were made aware of most recently with the mismanagement of the special taxing districts, which generate millions of dollars that may have been used inappropriately.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez admits overtaxing special districts — ‘so sorry’

There was no talk about that at this budget reveal. There was no talk about how Gimenez, in 2014, traded a $32 million debt in CRA funds to the city of Miami Beach that would end this year for an $800 million debt through 2045, beginning with payments in 2017, the year after his hotly contested election. There was no talk about how beginning in 2024, way after he leaves office, we will have to start paying the Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross $5 million a year for events he would have had anyway. How are those stadium upgrades coming, by the way?

And, again, questions beg on their knees: How can things be so different from a year ago, when Gimenez threatened to fire dozens of employees and was ready to present a minor tax increase that he later backed out of? How can a multi-year approach generate such a supposed boon of “game changers” from one year to the next?

Or is this budget more like a vehicle for his campaign chorus of “no taxes” and — wink, nod — more efficient management?

Because he did talk about that. A lot. He beat his chest at least twice, maybe three times about the average homeowner saving nearly $250 a year  in property taxes. “That is where the money went that did the most good — in the pockets of our residents and their families,” the mayor said.

“There are those out there that want to propose a tax increase. I don’t think that is necessary and I oppose any proposal to increase the tax rate,” Gimenez said, without mentioning names and Ladra has no idea who he is talking about because nobody has proposed raising taxes, just spending them more wisely.

But it’s okay if he wants to make his budget a campaign issue. Because Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado, who is the only declared candidate against Gimenez in 2016 so far, can make his budget a campaign issue, too. For her campaign.

“Carlos Gimenez said Miami-Dade county has turned the corner toward the future. But his budget speaks to the pat. to his past. To his past,” Regalado said in a video she posted on Facebook the day after the mayor’s press conference. “Because forgetfulness is a form of freedom. One that he hopes will relieve him of his responsibilities, will relieve him of accountability and will deflect from the mismanagement of his years as mayor.”

She picked up on the mayor’s mixed messages on cops and libraries and said that it’s nice he’s going to take care of “simple tasks, like mowing the lawn.” She also was glad he acknowledged a need to fix transportation structures.

“But this proposed budget and more empty promises won’t get us there. Because this budget doesn’t begin to address the needs of our county,” Regalado said.  “This budget is about Carlos Gimenez’s re-election campaign.

“In this budget, he has offered to help put out the fire that he has been building for the past five years,” Regalado said, promising follow up videos that bring light to different department issues that the budget does not address or addresses inadequately.

“This budget reveals Carlos Gimenez’s lack of leadership and mismanagement, from allocations to fines and fees we are paying to federal government.”

Yeah, those didn’t come up in the budget message either. And, judging from past years and recent accounting, er, snafus, we should double check everything.

  Carlos Gimenez, Miami-Dade budget, Miami-Dade Mayor 2016, Raquel Regalado