Budget Band-Aid: Miami-Dade mayor finds $66M to fill $402M budget hole

And county commissioners look for scapegoats 
As if she was reaching between the couch cushions, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava just magically found $66 million to soften the sting of her doom-and-gloom $13 million budget.
After floating layoffs and slashing nonprofits last month, proposing increased fees all over to stop a $402 million hole from growing, the mayor — who had a bunch of community budget meetings to get public input — came back last week with a sunnier story. While her administration still blames the constitutional offices for the lion’s share of the shortfall, Levine Cava said she “leveraged” unspent money from those same offices, made some adjustments here and there, got a fat $26 million check from the tax collector, and voilà! Suddenly, despite the loss of federal and state funding, the bloodletting doesn’t look so bad.
Here’s where the new-found dollars go:

$12.5M into reserves (because Wall Street watches, too).
$7.5M more for the shiny new Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office (because cops always get theirs).
$11.5M to nearly restore arts grants (after artists screamed bloody murder).
$18.4M to partially restore nonprofits (shortening the gap to only $21 million plus).
$5.6M to fully restore parks programs (and cancel those hated parking fees).
$4.4M for sidewalks, roads, and beautification (because beautification is important, too).
$400K for senior services (does that mean all of our abuelos’ meals?).

Sprinkle in a couple million to reduce gas tax and transit fare hikes, so they hurt a little less, and there’s a little for everyone. Nonprofits and arts groups get “partial” or “nearly” restored funding. Parks keep programs. More cracked walkways and streets get some love. But residents still get nickel-and-dimed at the pump and on paratransit. Everyone’s supposed to be grateful the cuts aren’t as cruel as first advertised.
Read related: Facing $400M budget shortfall, Miami-Dade cuts senior meals, lifeguards, more
At Wednesday’s Committee of the Whole — which is basically a commission meeting with zero public comment — La Alcaldesa tried to sell her new and improved “fair, realistic and compassionate” budget to a roomful of commissioners, firefighters, artists, seniors and non-profits. And nobody was buying it.
Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who basically made the budget workshop happen and came ready with dozens of recommendations — she didn’t even get to make them all — said that any line item that gets increased by 10% or more should come with an explanation.
“There is some padding in the budget,” Regalado said, addressing the administration. “You’re not just planning for something unexpected. You’re actually bulldog a cash drawer you can pull out midyear or at the end of the year.”
Regalado said the county can charge more for the park kiosks that people rent for birthdays and barbecues as well as cremation services at the medical examiner’s office. Technical improvements have to come with measurable savings, she said, adding that the mantra should be “streamline or be outsourced.”
Read related: Miami-Dade’s billion-dollar disconnect: Tax collector flush, county in the red
MetroMover shouldn’t be free, she said, adding that $1 fare would raise $7.3 million with current ridership and $1.50 would raise almost $11 million. Which is about what it costs to operate MetroConnect. The on-demand shuttle provides 2,000 rides a day to parents, seniors and low-wage workers and people with disabilities who can’t exactly jump in a Tesla or wait for the ghost bus that never comes.
Regalado said the trips often go over the extra mile that it was supposed to cover and that it is unfair to provide free rides for MetroConnect passengers while increasing rates for disabled transportation services. She said a small fee would not cover all the costs, but would help save millions.
“It’s still going to be subsidized. It’s just not free,” Regalado told her colleagues. “MetroConnect is really, at this point, just a free driver for many people, and it’s abused by the little group of people that know that it exists.”
La Alcaldesa said anyone cut off from MetroConnect could apply for other county fare subsidies at libraries and community centers.
But Commissioner Eileen Higgins said the service fills the gaps in our broken transit system and cheaper proposals are already coming in from competitors to Via, the private company that now runs the service in a dozen zones. Translation: the final budget might still have some kind of Frankenstein version of MetroConnect, which is turning into a political piñata. One side wants to kill it, the other wants to rebrand it, and the people who actually ride it are left wondering how they’ll get to the doctor, the job, or the classroom if the bus doesn’t show.
Read related: Eileen Higgins pressures Sierra Club and Ken Russell resigns as lobbyist
Higgins apparently likes MetroConnect more than she likes MetroMover. For that, the commissioner — who is running for city of Miami mayor — even floated a $100 a month “discounted” price for downtown residents that would basically translate to an extra $1,200 a year tax. Tourists can pay more, she said.
Doesn’t that go against all the incentivizing the Downtown Development Authority is doing?
Miami-Dade Office of Management and Budget Director David Clodfelter was the main punching bag at Wednesday’s special commission meeting to go through the budget to find “efficiencies” and “savings” — which translates to cuts other than the ones made by the mayor.
Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez said the county staff needed to better identify “between necessities and things that would be nice to have.” At one point, when he didn’t like the answers he was getting about budgeted vacant positions, Gonzalez basically questioned Clodfelter’s honesty. “Are you a liar,” he asked the budget director, point blank.

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