Ordinance 2001-137 - Laserfiche WebLink

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p<< pay back that debt. By identifying this issue and taking steps now to cut expenses in order to fund this on-going expenditure, we have put off the necessity to increase our tax rate beyond what it was before we became a city. The steps that became necessary to reverse this trend, which are included in the proposed budget, are as follows: · reftnancing the city's debt, · eliminating approximately nine positions from the city budget - four from layoffs and ftve from not filling vacant positions and attrition, · reducing other expenditures, and · identifying additional revenue sources. It appears that the combination of these steps will eliminate any projected potential budget deftcit for next year and maintain a tax rate slightly below the tax rate prior to the city's . . mcorporatlon. So as you can see, these factors are contrary to some recent publicity in the media that painted a picture of a "fmancial crisis" for the city. As stated before, we have identifted the potential for these issues to become a crisis and have taken the steps to avoid such a scenario and maintain the city's financial stability, while we continue to move forward on our agenda. Now, some have questioned how the city can move forward with our agenda on such things as continued property purchases, consideration of a city hall, additional beautiftcation, maintenance and further improvements to our existing parks, while we are laying off people and eliminating positions. What the public needs to understand is that in government service "moving forward with an agenda" is the same as "profttability" for a private company. If a company finds that it is not profttable and losing money, it takes whatever steps necessary to maintain its "profttability" and often that, unfortunately, includes the elimination of positions. In the case of government our "profttability" includes: · maintaining a high level of services, · continuing to develop and improve our parks, · developing the city hall complex, · continuing to provide a high level of public safety and beautiftcation for our city. The government is not here to provide jobs, the jobs are here to move our agenda forward and assure that the quality of service remains high and that the city progresses and improves (i.e., government profttability). Therefore, to maintain our "profttability," expenses needed to be cut and revenue sources needed to be found. Our "agenda" is our "profttability" and when we cease to move forward on our agenda we might as well go out of business. So, with the steps taken we have secured our ability to continue to move forward in an efftcient and economical manner while maintaining the "profttability" of our city. With regard to the creation of our pending agenda, the city commission recently attended a workshop identifying items of highest priority from an extensive pending agenda list developed by the city attorney and me. Whereas, it was acknowledged that all items are important, it is realized that with limited resources and staff we need to know where our emphasis should be. In actuality we are juggling all of the items on our pending agenda. However, I would like to share with you the top seven (J) items as identifted by our city commission. High Priority Items 1. Budget 2. City Hall Project 3. Redevelopment of Sunny Isles Boulevard ~:;::. ~-.. 1~ (..:.,; Budget Message