Commission and Staff Hold Off-site Retreat

The County Commissioners and senior staff assembled today in Boynton Beach at the Intracoastal Park Clubhouse, for an off-site “retreat”.

In January of last year, a similar meeting was held at the Riviera Beach Marina, and a wide variety of strategic topics were discussed (energy and water costs, Glades restoration, Biotech investments) as well as the upcoming budget outlook. The most significant result of that meeting was the setting of clear board direction to staff to return a flat millage budget. This benchmark was the driving force for the budget workshops and resulted in a final budget in September that was very nearly flat. The meeting was successful largely as a result of then Chairman Karen Marcus’ efficient management style, which kept the discussion focused and moving.

This year’s meeting was different. Instead of herself leading the discussion, current Chairman Shelley Vana turned the meeting over to a professional “facilitator”, David Rabiner. Mr Rabiner’s website lists as one of his services “Retreat Facilitation for Governing Boards and Managing Teams”. As a leadership trainer, he was compelling and entertaining, and one could easily see him in a corporate setting. However, for this group, his techiques to “facilitate trust and an effective working relationship” between commissioners and staff were off the mark.

Last year’s meeting was effective because the commissioners spoke freely to each other and related their views on the budget and strategic topics in depth. In this year’s meeting, much of the content consisted of Mr. Rabiner talking about his views on process and how things work in his native Oregon. Perhaps the commissioners found it useful but I suspect not. Many people who attended the meeting to hear some discussion of the budget outlook left before lunch and did not return.

After lunch, Mr Rabiner attempted to extract from the group a clear direction to staff for this year’s budget assumptions. He failed. When the meeting ended at the appointed time, a conficting set of requirements were laid on Bob Weisman and staff.

Steven Abrams and Paulette Burdick want a flat millage budget like last year.

Shelley Vana wants a budget proposal that delivers a “consistent service level”, even if a millage hike is necessary. Priscilla Taylor seemed to concur.

Jess Santamaria wants a “flat taxation” proposal – ie. a rollback budget, regardless of millage rate.

Burt Aaronson wants to reverse the cuts that have been made in ad valorem spending over the few years and “enhance the product” with either a 3% or 5% increase in millage.

Karen Marcus does not want to see any layoffs this year, but wants to start with a “consistent service level” proposal and have the board make cuts to approach flat millage from the high side.

When the meeting ended, these conflicting positions were on the table. Hardly a “clear direction to staff”.

Commissioner Marcus’ proposal deserves further comment however, as it represents a new approach. Mr. Rabiner made the point that there are two ways to achieve budget cuts. The first is to cut “line items” – which are portions of programs similar to what is presented on the “green pages” and “blue pages” prepared by staff in the last two years, sized by dollar and people impact. The second is to cut programs entirely (presumably those that are not needed anymore or no longer appropriate to the current environment).

With the “line item” approach, the priorities are driven by the County Administrator and staff since they present to the board their list of potential cuts from which to choose. Typically, these are sprinkled with items with vocal constituencies, leading to the yearly “Kabuki Dance” of the colored tee shirts.

With the “program” approach, the priorities are driven by the board itself, and have the possibility of being strategic in nature, or at least policy driven.

Karen Marcus seems to be proposing the latter approach, with a consistent service level starting point. Criticism of her proposal pointed out that only the staffs have the inside knowledge of how the pieces fit together and without the green/blue pages, intelligent choice is impossible. This misses the point – the commissioners, particularly long serving ones like Marcus, do have the knowledge and experience to make informed choices for program elimination or even adjustment of sub items. We think they should give this a try.

Transparency at PBSO – the Challenger’s View

At various times over the last two years, we at TAB have raised the issue of transparency regarding the Sheriff’s half billion dollar budget. Much of what goes on at PBSO is hidden from public view, and the budget is no exception. The only way to see how the agency spends the taxpayer’s money within the three “silos” of Law Enforcement, Corrections, and Court Services, is to file a chapter 119 (open records law) request and wait months for a partial answer. By contrast, the Martin County Sheriff puts all of his budget data right on his website for all to see. (see MSO Budget and Finance ).

Ethics also are not transparent at PBSO, and we believe that the Sheriff should voluntarily execute an interlocal agreement with the Office of Inspector General for oversight services equivalent to what we have for the county departments, the Solid Waste Authority, and the municipal governments. Commissioner Marcus pursued this avenue last year and was rebuffed. (See Should the Sheriff be Subject to the Ethics Ordinances and the Inspector General? ) “No way, no how” was the answer.

The County Commission created the Office of Inspector General in part to address our reputation as “corruption county”. The voters overwhelmingly voted to place the municipalities under her jurisdiction, and the SWA, Children’s Services Counsel and Health Care District came voluntarily. The Sheriff however, continues to resist.

Since Ric Bradshaw must stand for re-election to a third term this year, we wondered what his challenger Joe Talley had to say on these issues. Joe has recently announced his bid to lead PBSO, and brings a full career of law enforcement experience to the race, including 22 years in the Baltimore County Police Department where he attained the rank of major, and 5 years with the PBSO reserves. With this background he speaks from a position of authority on these matters. Here is what he had to say to us (emphasis is ours):

We think this is a refreshing attitude from one seeking the job of County Sheriff, and we hope his candidacy begins a public dialogue on these issues. A Sheriff should cooperate with the County Commission and the other constitutional officers and be a responsible steward of the public trust. Maybe the dialog of the 2012 elections can move us in that direction.

Beyond the Local Elections – a Municipal Elections Forum

Another decrease in valuations in 2012?

As you may recall from last year, county property valuation fell 1.8%. This put pressure on the commissioners to raise the millage in order to avoid cutting spending. As it turned out, the final millage did result in a budget reduction of $7.9M or about 1%, helped enormously by the Legislature’s passage of pension reform that provided a county windfall.

This year, Legislative action will again impact county budgets. One way is through HB251/SB928, which changes the rules under which county property appraisers operate. Specifically, this bill would require consideration of “open market transactions..”, “.. including, but not limited to, a distress sale, short sale, bank sale, or sale at public auction.”

Although the proposed statue would give the local PA some discretion, it is likely to depress valuations. Palm Beach County Property Appraiser Gary Nikolits estimates this could be as much a 2% reduction in valuaion – good for the homeowner, but not so good for city and county governments. (See the Palm Beach Post Story by Jennifer Sorentrue: “Property values stable in Palm Beach County, but bills leave tax revenue uncertain” )

The 2012 adopted budget which is now available on the county website, states on page 2, “Following four years of decline, property values have begun to stabilize and are projected to be level for FY 2013.” More optimistically, on page 58 they estimate a 2013 valuation forecast of $125.8 B, a 1% increase. Maybe not.

In any case, expect another difficult budget year.

Fire/Rescue Contract Negotiations – Back to the BCC

TAB members have been attending these, mostly once/monthly, negotiations since mid-June.   It was clear that little or no progress had been made in six months, and we of  TAB wondered how many more billable hours  would be spent for attorneys from both sides, sans resolution to anything.

Well – apparently, the County management team’s patience has been exhausted.  The County expected the Union to appear with a wage proposal, or at least an analysis of the County’s 22% across the board cut for new employees.  The Union said ‘No – the person who was doing the analysis had surgery and so we don’t have a response for you”.  County asked “Any movement on any of the proposals made by the County’?  “No” to that as well.  In fact, the Union said that it was very difficult to respond to 45 changes that the County wanted to make to the contract and although there has been probably some resolutions to 5-10 of these 45, that there are still 35 issues to work out.  The County attorney said he wasn’t going to get into exactly how many issues there were or remain.

County then went through 2 minor (one to two word changes) in articles 20 and 28.  County called them clarifications.  Union said these were changes, not clarifications.

Robert Norton (attorney for the county) then probed if there could be any meetings in January.  Matthew Mierzwa (union attorney) gave reasons why he was unavailable.  Mr. Norton said that “It’s clear that no progress is going to be made today”  and went on to say that he doesn’t recall any time in his career, making so little progress on a contract, and if there was a time, he doesn’t remember it.  While he wasn’t quite ready to call an “impasse”, he said that it was time to go back to the elected officials (Board of County Commissioners), to get guidance from them.  Depending on their decision, he’ll either work to get new bargaining dates or do whatever the next step is.

As a citizen and tax payer, watching twelve men waste their own (and our) time for six months, to achieve nothing, highlights why trust in government is at an all time low.

Note: the current contract expired in September.

County Adopts New Financial Standards

The county commission today discussed and approved new accounting standards for the next budget year that will adopt a more standard accounting methodology, making comparisons with peer counties possible (perhaps). For a full description, CLICK HERE.

Highlights included:

• Adoption of GASB 54, reporting spendable fund balances in 4 categories, possibly providing more transparency. During the discussion it was stated that since Hillsborough is already using this standard, it was not possible for TaxWatch (or anyone else apparently) to compare the currently reported Palm Beach County reserves to theirs. John Wilson mentioned they have had numerous discussions with TaxWatch on the subject since the budget hearings and that TaxWatch now “understands” their reserves, but the county is going back and looking at each capital project balance in more detail.
• Adoption of a “target” debt limit of $1200 per capita (which we are very close to at the present time). This is county only, not including SWA bonds. Additionally, debt service payments, exclusive of general obligation and self-supporting debts, will be no more than 5% of governmental expenditures.
• A policy proposal to consider voted General Obligation bonds over non-voted revenue bonds for future borrowing. As you might expect, this was not very popular but Steve Abrams suggested that projects could be “bundled” to make them more attractive to the voters. Karen Marcus indicated that was done in the past for Parks and Recreation.
• A non-specific proposal for departmental “Performance Measures” that could be used to compare to outsourcing alternatives and aid in evaluating department requests for increased funding. Bob Weisman suggested that there already were measurements in place but several commissioners were outright skeptical. Commissioner Vana thought that we can only take “baby steps” in this direction, but that measurements could also be used to consider “in-sourcing” tasks where the county can do it much better than a vendor. No examples were given.

Fire/Rescue Contract Talks Postponed for Another Month

So – where do we stand? The current contract expired at the end of September. There have been 6 contract negotiation meetings so far – of which 3 were 1/2 day and 3 were purportedly all day – or at least most of a day. Only a handful of the 47 articles (ie. chapters) have been signed-off, although most have at least been mentioned in the course of the 5 months elapsed time.

Observations: The meetings continue to be stylized. These are not negotiations in the common usage of the word. One side’s attorney (typically management) describes the change sought from the current contract. The other side’s attorney (typically the union) says ‘yes’ or more likely ‘no’. Occasionally there will be a few words of correction or acknowledgement from the 6+ representatives on each side. But more often, not. After several articles are discussed, the meeting breaks up in order that the sides (typically the union) can ‘caucus’. They come back and say ‘no’ and do not offer a tangible counter-proposal. There is no real discussion. There don’t seem to be minutes from prior meetings so topics are re-hashed. The difficult topics – eg pay plan, have not yet been broached.

Having come from only the private sector (with professional/white collar, hourly/blue collar, management/non-management) experience, negotiations on anything usually began with a summation of what was/wasn’t agreed to previously, and significant discussion would occur amongst those with the power to negotiate. Points of agreement would be compiled, points of disagreement would be clear and then, if necessary, the meeting would break up briefly to come to closure on a particular point. Perhaps what we’re observing is typical of all public sector negotations, we really don’t know. It does seem to be very inefficient to rehash the same things multiple times without at least noting what points were at issue.

Perhaps the problem is that the process is being observed. When we asked one of those who was present at the last contract talks in 2009 if this was “typical” of the process, it was suggested that our presence may be having an effect on the meetings. As one of the commissioners has told us on several occasions, government works best when it is being observed. Since this is the first time (to our knowledge) that members of the public have attended a Fire/Rescue union contract negotiation, perhaps the normal “give and take” of the sessions is being inhibited by the fact we are reporting what we observe. Think how things would change if these meetings were televised!

Is inefficiency necessary to good government? When not conducted in the sunlight, would a contract negotiated between a union and management that used to belong to the union have the same outcome? The taxpayer does not sit at this table. Neither does any commissioner, the elected taxpayer’s representatives. All we can do is observe and report.

Joking during the last meeting, when the scheduling of the next round was discussed, the union attorney suggested that it be on Thanksgiving Day because all would be paid extra to do so. What they did decide to do was to schedule the next round of meetings for November 22 and 23rd, the Tuesday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, a time when many members of the community are traveling or spending time with family. Maybe they expect to have a clear field on those days.

Fire / Rescue Contract Talks continue on Wednesday

Contract talks that have been ongoing since June for a new three year contract with IAFF local 2928 will continue this week. Three all-day sessions are scheduled for Wednesday through Friday, from 10:00AM to 5:00PM in the Everglades Room at the Chief Herman W. Brice Administrative Complex on Pike Road.

The last meeting was somewhat contentious as reported by Mike in “F-bombs Fly at Fire/Rescue Negotiations“. Given a month has passed, we wonder if the IAFF attorney has been able to cool down.

The meetings are open to the public and TAB plans to attend. Given the time involved, we are asking coalition partners and interested members of the public to help us in monitoring these meetings. Send us a note at info@pbctab.org if you can devote a few hours to a public service by sitting in on a portion. They are not recorded, nor are detailed minutes kept (to our knowledge). The only way to see what transpires is to physically attend.

To get an idea why these meetings are important, see Andrew Marra’s editorial in the Sunday Post: End the payroll paradox

Here are some resources that may be helpful:

• Marked-up Contract Proposal
• September Meeting: F-bombs Fly at Fire/Rescue Negotiations
• August Meeting: Little Progress in the IAFF Contract
• July Meeting: Fire/Rescue Talks Continue
• June Meeting, Genesis of a Collective Bargaining Agreement

2012 Millage set at 4.7815

Click HERE for Channel 20 Video of the meeting.

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In a relatively short meeting last night, the County Commission approved a 2012 budget by a 4-3 vote. Setting the county-wide millage at $4.7815 per $1000 valuation, the rate is an increase of 0.66%.

TAB has been working over the last few months to avoid any increase, but this outcome is acceptable, given it is a lot closer to our $4.75 target than the rollback rate proposed in June at $4.922. We would have liked to see more restraint in the Sheriff’s budget (it is actually increasing when pension reform savings are taken into consideration), but four of the seven commissioners were hard over on not cutting his budget at all. The Sheriff did pony up $1M in excess fees that helped them bring the millage down ever so slightly.

This was the closest budget vote in recent years – many thanks to commissioners Abrams, Burdick and Marcus, who kept to their position from the beginning of the process back in March to the final vote not to raise the rate. The others did exhibit some flexibility this year, even Burt Aaronson who has rarely argued for lower tax rates. Commissioner Taylor thought that the result was a compromise that had something for everyone and we would agree.

It can’t be proved whether our efforts in TAB have affected the outcome, but given the starting proposal of 4.922 and the significant progress towards the goal, we would like to think so. Almost all of those who spoke at the meetings in opposition to the tax hike were associated in some way with TAB.

Special thanks to those who spoke at the final meeting: Janet Campbell, Mel Grossman and Laura Henning of PBC Tea Party, Mayor Dan Comerford and Commissioner Chip Block of Jupiter Inlet Colony, Matthew Leger, Dionna Hall and Christina Pearce of RAPB, County Commission candidate Albert Key, State Senate candidate and 912 member Mike Lameyer, South Florida 912 members Dennis Lipp, Victoria Thiel and Nancy Hogan, and Barbara Susco, Mark Dougan, as well as Fred and Iris Scheibl of TAB.

Next year will be particularly challenging for the county budget, with an increase in pension costs expected as well as continued pressure on valuations. Be assured that TAB will continue our watchdog role going forward.

Call to Action – September 27 Budget Meeting

TAB Members,

Tomorrow evening, September 27, is the final county budget hearing at 6:00pm in the County Building at 301 North Olive, WPB. You should arrive by 5:30 if you want to be assured of a seat in the main meeting room.

On the table is the 4.79 millage carried over from the last meeting, along with a 4.784 “alternate” proposal that shaves another $700k off the first. If they were able to find only $5M (less than 0.25% of the proposed budget) then the tax rate hike would be unnecessary. Although the commissioners like to talk about “only pennies a day”, it is useful to remember that county spending has grown 10x population growth and 3x inflation since 2003. A line needs to be drawn in the sand. Now. This year.

Currently three of the seven commissioners have voted to avoid the rate increase and consider further cuts to the Sheriff’s budget. We agree, yet the other 4 have been unwilling to challenge the Sheriff, and can block any action in this area. On the bright side, that is the smallest majority we have seen to date, thanks to the courage of commissioners Abrams, Burdick and Marcus. Maybe we are making progress.

Please attend the meeting tomorrow, fill out a comment card, and speak, or send emails to the commissioners. Nothing has changed that makes the TAB proposal any less appropriate, and it remains:

• 4.75 millage – don’t increase the tax rates
• Take the remaining cuts from the Sheriff
• Sell off unused property
• Use reserves where necessary

For some useful background, see

• Tax Rate Proposal Still Too High on the TAB website
• Jennifer Sorentrue’s piece in the Post: Divided Palm Beach County Commission finds compromise increasingly tough on budget cuts
• Andrew Marra’s Editorial in the Post: To serve and protect budgets
• John R. Smith’s Op Ed in the Sun Sentinel: Time for Palm Beach County to go budget diet
• The TAB synopsis of the last meeting: A Surrealistic Budget Hearing

Fred Scheibl
Taxpayer Action Board

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