In this election year there have been several questions asked, and even false statements made, about your Martin County Taxpayers’ Association’s role in the political process. First and foremost, we DO NOT, as an organization, support any candidate in any election. Our charter is specific on that subject and we do not even mention the name(s) of elected officials or candidates in any of our articles or publications.

This does not prevent our members or Board of Directors from participating in the political process through personal support or contribution to a particular candidate or party. However, NO MCTA funds are ever contributed to a candidate, party or any other non-charitable organization, and our Directors receive no recompense of any kind for their volunteer services.

We have been known to publicly praise an individual by name for a specific action on the rare occasion where we believe it is justified and could not reasonably be interpreted as a political endorsement. Our standard procedure is to research a subject and present as many vetted facts as possible. We then try to lead the reader to what we believe is the logical conclusion that should be derived from those details. Obviously we are not infallible and rational people may disagree with our position on a given subject. This is why we encourage our readers to contact us by mail, or through our web site. We look at every letter and distribute nearly all correspondence to our Board for all 15 members to review and comment.

For example, in response to our recent call for reducing the exorbitant cost of Martin County’s 17 Beach Lifeguards, significantly increased by their court ordered inclusion last year in the expensive Fire/EMS “hazardous duty” retirement system, a reader from Jupiter wrote:

“Replacing full time lifeguard EMT’s with part-time lifeguards
with lower level first responder skills is not going forward but
going backwards. The more EMT lifeguards you have the better
emergency response care can be administered to near drowning
victims, heart attack victims and heat exhaustion victims.
Reducing these extremely well trained full time lifeguard EMT’s
would greatly reduce the standard of care currently offered by
Martin County for its residents and visitors alike. …would you rather have a college student or a professional lifeguard EMT come to your aid if you were having a
heart attack at the beach? There is no substitute for experience
and your full time lifeguard EMT’s give that experience.
The full time lifeguards with their experience prevent many
serious rescues by identifying problems in the water and moving
swimmers out of harms way. There is no substitute for well trained lifeguard EMT’s .”

In this particular case we took the unusual step of providing a direct MCTA response:
”Certainly, anyone would rather have a trained EMT present if they were having a heart attack at the beach.  If that was what lifeguards were there for the expense might be justified, but it is not.  There were exactly 16 ambulance calls to MC beaches in 2007.   Possibly there were some heart attacks among those calls.  However, there were almost 400 water rescues and over 12,000 "public service contacts" during the same period.  Having more people capable of handling those more basic chores is the defining need - protecting swimmers from the hazards of the ocean.  With that in mind spending more than $1.25 million (over $75,000 each in '07) for just 17 lifeguards/EMTs for all of Martin County's beaches cannot be justified.  You could easily have double that number of lifeguards with the same or better capability to perform those primary missions just LIKE EVERY OTHER COUNTY IN FL DOES.”

Our readers often see us criticize situations such as this and the many costly provisions of our County’s labor contracts. Too often this criticism is interpreted as being against the workers that provide these services. This is not true. We do not criticize any employee or union for seeking the highest compensation legally possible. We can and do take issue with the management that approves these contracts. This has been especially true of our Fire/EMS Department that includes these Lifeguards. We are very impressed and thankful to have these dedicated men and women protecting us. However, we believe that the compensation packages agreed to by the Martin County Commission over the last eight years were unjustified, given the across-the-board raises and the size and physical make-up of our County. Even more egregious were giving away the management rights that lost County control over issues such as scheduling, overtime and benefits.

This problem is not just in the Fire/EMS department. We have great difficulty with many of these benefits that, individually, are not generally available to workers in local industry. In their totality they are virtually unheard of in the private sector and are a horrendous hidden cost to Martin County taxpayers. These benefits include such things as paying for unused sick and vacation time, automatic cost-of-living and longevity pay raises, “extra” holiday pay and other professional allowances for well-compensated, salaried staff, and making use of patrol cars as commute vehicles for deputies a contractual “right”.

The way to correct this unsustainable situation is through modification of these contracts, and that will have to be accomplished over time as they are renewed. To achieve this we continue to insist that experienced professionals MUST be retained to negotiate ALL future labor related contracts. While we are critical of the excessive use of consultants, we also believe that outside experts could be brought in to look at many of the County’s operating procedures. This should not be limited to Fire/EMS, but considered for all City, County and School Board operations. Let your elected officials know if you support these recommendations. Only an informed public requesting these changes can make them happen.