In Your Corner

As we start this New Year we would like to offer our elected leaders suggestions we have received from our Board, members and readers over this past year.  The coming year will bring significant fiscal challenges for all of our government entities.  We believe these suggestions could make their efforts at governance much more successful.

1. All decisions should be structured to think about an action’s fiscal impacts next week, next year, next decade and on the next generation.  Commissioners should look at appointing a volunteer Budget Advisory Committee that would help them assess goals, service priorities and long-term sustainability.

2.  Since personnel costs are, by far, the largest portion of local government budgets we have received numerous suggestions on this subject.

a.   Before introducing new employee “buyouts”, the savings and consolidations    promised by the County’s first round of “bought-out” staff reductions should be documented and publicized.

b. The focus should be on reducing administrative costs rather than librarians, park maintenance, or others directly supporting the public. Although we may need to reduce the workforce, the real opportunities lie with high paying and unnecessary administrators/bureaucrats. 

c. Restrict the use of consultants and part time employees except as replacements for full time employees.  Hire qualified part-timers who have access to benefits through retirement or other sources.  Use consultants or outsourcing only if it reduces staff and/or produces measurable long term cost savings.

d. The largest cost of an employee is benefits, in particular pensions, health care, vacations, time off, etc. not salaries.  Historically, public sector employees received more generous benefits than in the private sector to compensate for their lower wages and salaries.  This condition no longer exists.  The focus should be to make benefits comparable to the private sector, not other governmental entities.

e.   If government allows a retiree to return to work full or part time, or on special assignment, suspend retirement pay or make an offset so that there is no direct duplication of pay and retirement benefits.

f. Hire professional negotiators to handle all union and employee contracts.  This is one of the few areas where we would like to see more time and money spent on outside consultants and private firms.  Taxpayers cannot afford the largess given out in recent years by our politicians and bureaucrats.  All parties to these (and all other) negotiations must remember that a union or salaried employee only gets what management will give.

3.         All government decision makers need to step out of their “bunker” and experience the same things our taxpayers do.  Understand the current state of the economy; don’ t keep building sidewalks to nowhere, taking forever to make a decision, hiring a consultant every time there is a tough decision. It takes hard work for us to make the money we give you – respect it.  

4.         Embrace the concept of rewarding performance. While no evaluation system is perfect, rewarding excellence is the most time-tested way to achieve an objective in any field of endeavor.   Any system that rewards equally regardless of effort/success will eventually institutionalize mediocrity.

5          Institute a suggestion program that rewards cost saving proposals and returns a percentage of money saved to the individual and/or the department’s budget.

6. The School Board and Superintendent should redouble their efforts to reduce the requirement for, and the cost of, new school facilities.  Plan for anticipated future growth by continuing to add classrooms to existing schools with excess core facilities.  Continue the collaborative and cooperative efforts on the part of our new Superintendent, administrators, and teachers.  If the recent School Board/teacher negotiations are an indication, we should have a productive year educating our students.

 7.        Law enforcement should look for ways to reduce the costs of jail operations. Work with the County and City engineers to better coordinate the timing of traffic signals. 

We have received many more suggestions than we can list in a single column.  We will add more in some of our next articles.

We encourage your comments, criticisms, ideas, or any questions about how your taxes work; call or fax 772-288-0474 or write to us at PO Box 741, Stuart, FL 34995 or e-mail us at admin@mctaxpayers.org or visit our WEB site, mctaxpayers.org.