In Your Corner

fiscal year 2000-2001. As we stated last week, although beautifully presented,

this budget can be tough to navigate.

separate from their capital spending; defining same as "a purchase over

$5,000 with a life of three or more years." County department budgets

include "enhancements," which can be capital items costing less than

$40,000. Only at that threshold do they attain the title of "capital

improvements" and move out of the department budget into the Capital

Improvement Plan budget. Therefore, each department budget contains a

confusing mix of labor, expense, and capital items, some of which are

described in a limited fashion.

year to year, and the inconsistency from one county government to

another in job classification and department makeup create a real

problem for us in attempting to compare or to benchmark. Some examples

of departments in Martin County which defy comparison in other counties

are Public Services (especially Stormwater Management) and Growth

Management. Readers may remember that in our study of Stormwater

Management, we found that neighboring counties shared the professional

and technical jobs with existing engineers and staff, whereas Martin

County approved the hiring of an entirely new staff to perform this

function exclusively.

preliminary budget proceedings when our commissioners asked for a Water

Resource Issues Manager, whose task was to oversee environmental issues.

Some commissioners went so far as to specify background, education and

department assignment for this new position. We view this approach as

micromanagement, depriving staff of being both creative and resourceful.

performed or an objective to be achieved, staff would then have the

latitude of exploring the best and most cost-effective approach. For

example, this position may have many redundancies with tasks already

being performed by South Florida Water Management or the Department of

Environmental Protection.

have the expertise and capacity to allow these tasks to be added or

shared, and then short-term needs may call for a consultant or

temporary employee. That is why these directives should be developed by

staff, who would be charged with arriving at the most cost-effective

recommendation. Unfortunately, the current commission's approach to

problem solving does not allow the county staff this type of creativity.

process, bolstered by the county administrator's presentation which

pronounced our county's fiscal health as "good" and described our

overall debt burden as "medium to low." They paused only to reflect on

issues relating to a failing child care program and to question the need

for Information Technology to budget almost $5,000 for each full-time

employee for travel and education as a hiring and retention incentive.

The better part of an hour was spent debating some small dollar items

attached to larger philosophical issues as above, plus a small

contribution ($10,000) to business development.

most attention being paid to Animal Control. The Director of Emergency

Services was asked to reduce firefighter and EMT overtime. The contract

with Corporate Jet Service for the helicopter ambulance trauma service

has been approved. The Airport budget came under scrutiny from those

commissioners who wanted to avoid any perception of expansion. Our

Watchdogs will report on these issues in later columns.

costs, which in our opinion have become excessive. This awareness should

afford the County Attorney additional opportunity to counsel and

forewarn them of the possible legal ramifications of their proposed and

ongoing activities. A separate account was established for outside

litigation costs ($305,000). This is over and above the time spent on

litigation by the six attorneys who make up our county legal staff. The

County Attorney is doing a good job of tracking these costs and focusing

on this expense area. Still missing are cost as well as the time spent

by other related departments.

Manager, which may or may not solve the problems noted. Here again, the

problem might have been given to the Administrator to solve, as this

important issue should not have been rushed to make the budget deadline.

a professional and convincing set of visuals, he illustrated that his

department is the primary responder to calls within the county when

compared to other neighboring counties where police work is shared to a

larger degree by incorporated town and city officers. The Sheriff's

calls for service have increased 11.53% per year for the past five

years. He showed that his budget increases have trailed the Martin

County total budget for BOCC by a significant percentage.

salary experts from the Mercer Group, Inc., consultants hired by him to

conduct a wage and salary survey for his department. It was late in the

afternoon. These two consultants, dressed in their black suits and ready

with their luggage to board a plane, had time for only the following,

very brief visual synopsis of their findings that in our view explains

little:

__________________________________________________________

MARTIN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE ACTUAL AVERAGE SALARY

AS A PERCENTILE OF THE MARKET PAY PLAN RANGE

28.8 PERCENTILE

__________________________________________________________

market salaries are above the Martin County average" and "It will take

several years to bring Martin's pay plan in line with the market." Our

discussions with the consultants confirmed that this graphic compared

two different statistics (apples to oranges),they stated that the final

report due in about a month should confirm this statistical

relationship.

Sheriff's budget was passed in a flash with little discussion from the

commission, the room emptied, and follow-up items consumed the rest of

the day. What wasn't done was a pop quiz for all present on just what

that visual really meant. We will attempt to get that question answered

and let you know what we find out; we are waiting for a copy of the wage

and salary survey.

tentatively scheduled for September 13 and 20.