“There’s fat in the proposed budget . . .” An opinion

By City Commissioner
Mike Lednovich
September 15, 2020

There’s fat in the proposed budget, so why can’t the city lower your taxes?

For the past six months I’ve been preaching about “non essential” spending by the City Commission. Mostly what I’ve heard in response, including last Tuesday’s public workshop on the proposed 2020-2021 millage rate, has been crickets.

In order to fund the proposed 2020-2021 city budget, the City Commission is being asked to reach into the City’s piggy bank — it’s reserves — to the tune of several million dollars. That will get us thru one year. What happens in 2021-2022?

There’s about $450,000 in budget cuts that need to be made to get to the true rollback rate.

The most uttered question when discussing lowering property taxes is: “What would you cut from the budget?”

It’s asked as if every single line item in this budget is essential to delivering services to city residents and visitors. My pushback remains they’re not all essential.

To answer the “what would I cut” question, I’ve gone line-by-line examining the 492-page detailed budget document. Here’s what I’ve found:

The City Commission’s budget is $314,800. A large chunk — $185,000 — pays for City legislative lobbyist Buddy Jacobs ($85,000), City Commissioner salaries ($60,000) and the Main Street organization ($40,000).

But there’s another $70,000 that easily can be eliminated for the short term.

– $20,000 for miscellaneous under professional services. I’ve dealt with enough organizational budgets in my lifetime to recognise that budget items labeled miscellaneous is code for ‘fat.’

– There’s $5,500 for a ‘visioning’ facilitator and food. Our city is populated with many former business consultants, one of whom I’m sure would volunteer their time/expertise to lead City Commissioners for its one day January event to identify key priorities for the upcoming year. The 2020 visioning session was led by City Manager Dale Martin. On the food front, I’m quite capable of buying my own coffee and bagel and going out for lunch.

– $15,000 for 4th of July fireworks. The City is not in the entertainment business. It’s here to provide police, fire, water, emergency medical services, stormwater relief, etc., etc. Shouldn’t Main Street and the Tourist Development Council be reaching out to local business sponsors to fund this?

– Almost $10,000 to pay for City Commissioner ‘team development’ and money to attend the annual Florida League of Cities meeting. I team build with my fellow commissioners at every City Commission meeting and workshops. And, I attended the 2019 FLOC meeting in Orlando. Frankly, I believe that conference was a waste of taxpayer money.

– Economic development/opportunity consumes another $15,000. What’s been the bang for the buck so far? Can someone provide me a viable example of return on investment?

– The City Manager has $87,283 budgeted for a Comprehensive Plan Revision Manager that’s now going to be used 100% to hire an outside consultant under the guidelines of “what can we get for $87,283?” How about we cut it half and start the process with $40,000.

For those keeping score at home our tally is now $110,000 of the $450,000 we need.

– Under the non-departmental category there’s $50,000 on the line item “City Hall Assessment/Design.” This much I know, our current city hall needs repair and it’s bursting at the seams with people. The solution is to start relocating some departments to the Peck Center which has plenty of room. Let’s spend $20,000 on how to do that and save $30,000.

– There’s $40,000 budgeted in the Tree Trust account for a Bosque Bello Cemetery Master Tree and Landscape plan. How about using that money to actually plant real trees.

– Have the cellphones of city staff stopped working? Because there’s $26,080 to purchase 46 new cellphones in this budget. Also on the technology front is $17,325 for new desktop computers. That’s a total of $43,000.

– The City has three vehicles – each with about 55,000 miles driven – slated to be replaced for about $110,000. No, keep them in the fleet until they hit 100,000 miles.

Now we’re at $293,000 in savings thus far.

There are two big ticket items listed in the Capital Improvements.

– $225,000 for expansion of the City Marina mooring field that will take years for the City to recoup its investment. Is it essential now, no.

– $250,000 to remove utility poles on Front Street and bury the lines underground. This also can wait.

Our total is $768,000 saved, more than enough to meet the $450,000 threshold to operate under the rollback property tax rate while making a small dent in the amount we take from reserves.

The City Commission will set the millage rate at its Sept. 22 meeting. There is a public hearing prior to the vote.

So “what would you cut?” There’s the answer.

What say you crickets?

10 Comments
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John Goshco
John Goshco (@guest_58904)
3 years ago

Nicely explained, Mr. Lednovich. Reasonable budget cuts with no layoffs.

I hope you will formally present this proposal to the rest of the commissioners for comment. It looks like they missed a lot of low-hanging fruit. Think what could be done if the commissioners actually read the budget.

Donna Ballard
Donna Ballard (@guest_58907)
3 years ago

My plan was to vote against every city commissioner currently in office because l am tired of my property taxes going up every year. Soon only the rich will be able to live here. I am impressed with the ways you have found to cut the budget. It would be nice to hear the ideas of the other commissioners.

Tom Smith
Tom Smith(@tom-s)
3 years ago

After attending a city budget meeting and participating in many county budgets, something has to change. I think we should start with the city managers position. This budget is his! He could go to the department heads and say “make some cut and make them count”. He doesn’t work for the employees of the City he works for the folks that live in the city.

The commissioners need to step up and correct this concern.

Jack Knocke
Jack Knocke (@guest_58912)
3 years ago

Thank you Commissioner Lednovich! It is encouraging to see thoughtful leadership by you and Commissioner Kreger on the budget. On the flip side, it is severely disappointing that the City Manager did not present any of these as proposed non-essential spending eliminations. Dale Martin is obviously not listening to the commissioners or to the citizens who have been calling for cuts. Let’s hope that Ross, Chapman and Miller are listening. At the Sept 22 meeting, please ask each of them to defend each of these spending items specifically. And, by the way, I also support freezing salaries, freezing hiring and considering cuts to non-essential staff positions. Dale Martin has been on a hiring and salary increase spree that has to stop.

Enough of the tax and spend philosophy championed by Dale Martin, Chip Ross, Phil Chapman and Johnny Miller. Our city can be a wonderful place for everyone with smart responsible governance.

Pat Taylor
Pat Taylor(@navymom09)
3 years ago

Well done, Commissioner! Thank you for actually doing & presenting a line item analysis.

Seems a whole lot of city revenue goes down the “planning & consultant” sinkhole annually. Why?Bosquebello is already well-treed and adequately maintained. Cell phones? Really?? Today’s vehicles, properly maintained, are built to last hundreds of thousands of miles and we’d all be broke if we replaced them at 55,000. And yes, aside from networking, most “conferences” are a colossal time & $$$ sink. As for burying utility lines, that’s a proposal we floated in The Maritime Republic of Old Town two years ago that met with strenuous, vocal disapproval. It is well past time for budgetary belt tightening and salary freezes with the economic hardships and fallout of 2020 not yet fully realized by many taxpayers. Relegate all the boondoggles to a “wish list” for consideration the day there’s a substantial surplus on hand. Give property owners a much-needed break! Tap local volunteers—this city is chock full of talent and can-do citizens. What we want and what we really need are two very different things.

Claudia Hurt
Claudia Hurt (@guest_58914)
3 years ago

Thank you, Commissioner!!! Your practical/common sense thinking and action is so needed right now.

Peter Usher
Peter Usher (@guest_58921)
3 years ago

PLEASE encourage the Board to stop spending money we don’t have. Budgets are being cut everywhere but not in Fernandina. After the FEMA funding debacle, I have no faith in anything the City Manager says. He has to understand that this is a time to separate our needs from things he wants, but it’s been clearly demonstrated time and again that his personal agenda is not necessarily good for Fernandina. I could go on and on, but will spare you. Suffice to say, Fernandina is not Connecticut (or Maryland, for that matter). Keep up the good fight!! I know it’s not easy.

Steve Cook
Steve Cook(@steve-cook)
3 years ago

We’ve been very lucky with the economy so far… All indications are that this virus is not going away soon. If Mr. Ross can do his normal excellent research on the budget like Mike did, we may be able to save for rainy day problems and be conservative for a change.

GERALD DECKER
GERALD DECKER(@myfernandina)
3 years ago

Mr. Lednovich is the city’s cost analyst since there are non on staff, it appears. However, the real problem is a lack of strong leadership from the city commission at the start of the budget process. Mr Lednovich proposed directing that non-essential spending be cut or deferred back in April but was ignored, Had the commission followed his advice and given Mr Martin direction, reserves would have been protected, staff growth curtailed, and fiscal control reasserted by our elected officials.

Carol Stephens
Carol Stephens (@guest_58946)
3 years ago

Good sound reasoning. Thank you for your analysis. Personally, I must rent my property 1/2 the year to pay for my taxes. I’d like to live here 100% but can’t. Guess moving can be an option