MIAMI (CBS4) ―The clock is ticking and there is no stopping the approach of more budget pain this year across South Florida. Battered property values and depleted government coffers will do that.
You hear about financial crises so often that they may begin to elicit a yawn. They shouldn't. Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff said, "If we don't get city finances under control we have to go bankrupt."
Miami, the Magic City, can't print money like Washington. Neither can Miami-Dade or Broward or…..you get the point. Local governments and cities, coast to coast, are straining under mounting obligations.
Financial experts recruited to provide a snapshot of Miami's precarious situation illustrated the point Thursday. They told commissioners eight of every ten dollars are spent on city workers—salary, pensions, and other benefits.
One snapshot: Between 2000 and 2009 the study shows general fund revenue in Miami rose by $178 million. However the growth in worker costs shot up by $205 million. It is one small example of the problem bedeviling budget planners everywhere.
The fixes are painful: either employees have to go, services have to give, taxes have to rise, or a combination of all three and no one wants to raise taxes in the current economic environment.
"This year we are hoping to get at least $60 million in concessions from the unions in terms of compensation and pensions," Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado said.
Unions say they are willing to help the city stay afloat but will not watch their pensions and benefits upended. "What they are asking for us to give up," said FOP vice president Javier Ortiz, "and what we are putting on the table are two different things."
No one wants to negotiate particulars in public, but the battles will be intense in the months to come. Of the budget crisis, Commissioner Sarnoff said, "I can see us sailing toward Niagara Falls. We may be 20 feet away."
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