Opinion Submitted by
John Campbell Elwell
Without once raising the large deficit dollar figure facing the City of Fernandina Beach this upcoming fiscal year, the five Commissioners and the City Manager sparred over the Parks & Recreation department budget at their Tuesday evening meeting . Not one other department budget was reviewed for potential cost reductions. While all present were well aware that programs and personnel need to be reduced in order to balance the various department budgets, no one other than Commissioner Poynter seemed inclined to talk about the issue. Further, they were quick to move on raising the tentative millage rate, citing that it could be lowered before the final number was finalized on August 3rd. The trouble with that scenario is that Commissioner Corbett will be unavailable for discussion from July 18th until August 4th due to a previously scheduled vacation. This means that the new millage rate will be set by four City Commissioners rather than the elected five.
Commissioners Poynter and Filkoff were willing to discuss other sources of revenue to offset the expense side of the ledger and to reduce the dependence of City income being highly skewed to franchise fees and property taxes. This was tabled until their next scheduled meeting. The City Manager did “float” some new austerity measures that could help reduce the deficit; raise the deductible for city employee health insurance, eliminate non profit organization contributions, close both city swimming pools for a year, and reducing employee headcount further than five positions. When employee cuts were mentioned, the age old argument surfaced from Commissioner Pelican that public safety may be compromised. It would appear that the majority of the Commissioners want to keep spending and raise the millage rate and franchise fees for tax payers to “fill the budget gap”. This is certainly not what the two newly elected Commissioners campaigned on last Fall.
Never once during the meeting was the total deficit figure of $3.4M discussed, and that even after reducing the General Fund Reserve to 20%, there is still a $2.5M deficit.
City Manager Gerrity seemed exasperated at times at the Commissioners for their lack of clear direction. He finally responded at one point by saying that he had “no problem” going through the department budgets again and eliminating more cost. Frankly without more serious cutbacks on the expense side of the budget, and more revenue other than property taxes and franchise fees, the City is facing the largest tax increase in recent memory.
In a follow up meeting with City Manager Gerrity on July 12th, he outlined his views of the budget process by stating that it should be a partnership agreement between the Commissioners and himself, but that it is “clearly their budget and the City Manager only administers it”. Mr Gerrity also stated that user fees for City programs will have to increase and he welcomes private/public business partnerships that would help reduce the budget deficit. He was extremely forthcoming in his approach to reducing City expenses and working on “economies of scale” to eliminate expense duplications.
John Campbell Elwell is the managing partner of Elwell Associates specializing in comprehensive sales, marketing and financial strategic planning with clients in the U.S. and the Caribbean. He was the National Sales and Marketing Director for Rayonier Lumber Division for six years. In 2011, he was a candidate for city commissioner.
July 14, 2012
8:37 p.m.
Just an important correction/clarification to John’s article. The millage rate reporting deadline of August 4th is a tentative millage rate, not the final millage rate. Once established, the City Commission cannot exceed the adopted tentative millage rate but can lower it as they move to finalize the budget The FINAL millage rate is scheduled to be set at a formal budget hearing in late September (current calendar shows Sept. 20th but subject to change.)