On behalf of the FWB Tea Party, several of you indicated that you had not heard from the “first” person who was opposed to a property tax increase. Well, take a good look around because you are now surrounded by not just registered voters, but people who pay taxes and actually show up to vote, as will occur in March 2011.
Perhaps you didn’t notice that voters rejected a sales tax a few weeks ago – less taxes mean less taxes! It is the responsibility of the City Council to represent the citizens, and it was asserted that no one wants to cut spending, let me say on behalf of the assembled crowd “au contraire”.
Crestview found a way to cut $3,000,000 from their budget, and we are asking that you ask OUR staff, paid for by the residents of FWB, to go find more cuts.
- Have we taken a serious look at consolidation of services with the County, such as Fire and Police Departments? Mr. Holmes alluded to what businesses would do during a recession. In the private sector, this is the first step a business would take – consolidate operations to save money. Ladies and gentlemen – this recession is with us for a long time. There is no real indication that improvements will occur anytime soon.
- The city paid $50,000 for a consulting project to tell us to raise our water rates– another form of taxation – was this really the best use of limited resources? No one in City Hall or locally could have done this project cheaper? And as a result, the Council is now looking for increases – stop paying outsiders for work that should be done in house.
- Like Crestview did, get creative on employee hours and furloughs.
- There are roughly 98 employees in parks and recreation. By comparison there are 108 Police and Fire employees. Surely, a hard look at Parks and Recreation is in order. When I took a cursory look at the payroll vs. facility usage, there certainly appears an easy opportunity to reduce spending.
- The Council approved a $100,000 upgrade to Fred Hedricks, with an undefined future cost of $250,000. That’s nearly 40% of their budget, and represents almost the entire tax increase based on the millage rate. You are setting the stage to tie the hands of the next City Council with a future tax increase by not taking a hard look at closing, consolidating, or changing the operations of our Rec Centers.
- Take Mr. Reeves up on his proposal to cut $20,000 from the budget on fireworks. Niceville has found a way to get private donations to make it work.
- Our adult recreation leagues have had plummeting usage, yet the city continues to accept this from the league management. Participation has decreased in the last 3 years by 8%.
- Continue to reduce funding to the Chamber. Why are we using tax dollars to the Chamber – our other municipalities are reducing these contributions.
- Are we fully leveraging cost savings from the library co-operative program? This is one area (library usage) that has spiked during the recession, and due to rising fixed costs, such as a costly pension program, we cut hours at the one place our citizens are actually using.
- If you want a permit for a park rental such as the Landing, you have to go to the Fred Hedricks center on Jet. Why on earth can’t this be done in City Hall where we collect water bills?
- We pay a corrections officer to manage inmates (non-violent) to pick up trash. However, it appears we have kept 7 employees on the payroll who were supposed to be removed to save costs. So this program has actually increased costs to the city!
- There is a lot of unused space in city hall facilities while we pay rent in other locations. A decent facility plan should resolve this and save money.
- Do we charge enough rent to groups such as StageCrafters to use the Municipal Auditorium? Are tax payers supporting other non-profits that should be cut?.
You get the point – there is a lot that can be cut, and we in the FWB Tea Party are asking that you do just that. If raising taxes by 8 ½ percent is the only solution that this City Council sees, then we will work with a new City Council in March 2011. Thank you.
